Living with autism becomes easy with occupational therapy that helps autistic kids in many ways. Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder primarily affecting communication and social skills. Occupation therapy for autism can help improve sensory processing issues, eye contact, repetitive behavior, and interest in activities.
How is autism treated?
Autism spectrum disorder requires improvement and not treatment. It requires therapies instead of medicines. There are many ways of improving the intelligence level, self-regulation, fine motor skills, and social skills. Regular therapy can bring significant change in the overall quality of life of autistic people. They can also lead a normal life with minimum assistance.
Occupational therapy helps improve autism in the following ways
- Everyday skills
Autistic kids display significant improvement in their everyday skills needed to reduce their dependence on others. For example, they can dress on their own, have all the good manners expected, and hygiene. Greeting guests, dressing, and washing hands before and after meals are simple tasks but they can make a big difference for an autistic child.
- Fine motor skills
Autistic kids suffer from a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects fine motor skills the most. In other words, they face more challenges in holding things, especially small objects in their hands. For example, they have difficulty opening doors and taps. Also, they find it difficult to hold spoons and forks. Occupational therapy helps develop fine motor skills needed for everyday life.
- Muscular activities
Occupational therapy improves muscular activities such as walking and running. Autism spectrum disorder affects muscular strength resulting in loss of energy and muscular power. However, occupational therapy for kids can bring significant improvement in the muscular power of autistic kids. They can walk, run, and jump with much ease and comfort with the help of therapies.
- Social skills
Occupational therapy is quite helpful in improving the overall social behavior and skills of autistic kids. For example, make eye contact. Autistic kids avoid making eye contact with others. Also, they don’t take an interest in activities. However occupational therapy makes them more social. It makes it easier for them to become social and friendly.
- Reasoning ability
Occupational therapy develops reasoning ability and problem-solving skills. The development of fine motor skills helps in holding books, reading, and writing. Also, it won’t be an exaggeration to say that therapy makes autistic kids school-ready. It is for this reason that occupational therapy is an important constituent of school readiness programs.
How effective is occupational therapy in treating autistic kids?
Occupational therapy is quite helpful in improving the overall quality of life of autistic people. It corrects the behavior which is like treating symptoms. Since the underlying conditions can’t be cured, they should be improved with continuous practice.
Occupation therapy for autism is the only hope for parents looking for treatment for autism. It is a neurodevelopmental disorder that can be addressed only with therapy. Autistic kids do well when trained by therapists. They only need guidance and training to achieve their full potential.