Self care skills are the activities we complete each day that include dressing/undressing, manipulating fasteners, feeding, drinking, toileting, grooming and hygiene. These help us facilitate independence and the ability to care for one’s own needs. Self care requires fine motor coordination, dexterity, gross motor skills, visual motor and visual perceptual skills, sensory processing, executive functioning and language skills.

It enables a child to achieve autonomy in their daily life which promotes independence and confidence. Additionally, self care skills provide children the foundational skill of developing routines which is a transferable skill that applies to academic, social and community contexts. For example, completing a bedtime routine allows children to build fine and visual motor skills, coordination, sequencing and planning skills and provide your child with an approach to accomplish goal-oriented activities that they can use as a methodology for completing other activities across contexts.

-Difficulty engaging in undressing/dressing skills

-Difficulty manipulating fasteners

-Difficulty with potty training

-Difficulty with motor planning

-Difficulty with bathing, grooming or feeding

Occupational therapy can help your child learn how to be an active participant in self care skills by implementing play-based and evidenced-based treatment approaches to helping them gain independence with activities of daily living. For example, a child may learn how to translate food from a spoon to mouth by practicing feeding a doll or scooping small manipulatives with a spoon. Occupational therapy also includes addressing the foundational skill areas that are needed to perform self care skills which may include improving fine/visual motor skills, bilateral coordination, motor planning, attending, sequencing, and more. Home exercise programs are often shared with families to help practice self care skills with their child in their natural environment. Ultimately, occupational therapy aims to provide families the tools needed to maximize success to achieve independence and self efficacy across contexts.