February 1, 2024

How Household Materials Can Be Used For Occupational Therapy Goals

In occupational therapy sessions, we often use common materials and games to make our sessions therapeutic and fun.

In occupational therapy sessions, we often use common materials and games to make our sessions therapeutic and fun.

Here are some ways that you can use materials and equipment that you may have lying around at home to help your children reach their occupational therapy goals:

  1. Board Games – Board games are a great way to help your children develop their social skills and fine motor skills. Board games can be a way to improve eye contact, turn taking, and sharing. Many board games, such as Battleship, Trouble, and Perfection, involve small pieces that need to be placed into the game board. By having your child use his fingers to manipulate these pieces, it can help him understand how to hold small objects which can facilitate learning how to properly hold writing utensils. In addition to helping to hold small pieces, it can also assist your child to develop other fine motor skills, such as manual dexterity and in hand manipulation skills. For example, you can have your child hold onto several of the pieces with one hand and put them into the game board one by one. Using board games that also have cards, such as Sorry, can also help improve manual dexterity by means of shuffling, dealing, and manipulating the cards without dropping them or revealing them to the other players.
  2. Play-Doh Play-Doh is a wonderful tool to improve fine motor skills in children. Play-Doh can be used as a medium to practice writing, drawing, and cutting. You can trace different geometric forms (circle, square, and triangle) into the Play-Doh with a pencil and have you child copy the shapes in another piece of flattened Play-Doh and cut them out with scissors. Using Play-Doh to practice drawing and cutting is often a good precursor to writing with a pencil and paper as the texture of Play-Doh is more resistive which makes cutting and tracing easier. Play-Doh can also be used to help strengthen the small muscles in their hands by rolling it into a snake, ball, and flattening it into a pancake.
  3. Puzzles – Puzzles can be used to help your children improve their visual-perceptual skills which is important for many school tasks, such as copying things from the board and finding items in their desk. The complexity of puzzles can very greatly, from simple large peg puzzles in a wooden form to 100 piece jigsaw puzzles. If you have an older child, using a complex jigsaw puzzle can be a great way to work on planning, sequencing, organizing, and problem-solving skills.
  4. Playground equipment – Using the playground or the jungle gym in the backyard is the perfect way to help your children increase their core strength, upper body strength, and bilateral coordination. This will help build up the strength in your children’s larger muscles so that when they have to work at their desk or a table, their core and upper body will have the stability and endurance to sit and complete fine motor activities.
  5. Balls – Playing catch, kicking, dribbling, and volleyball are just a few of the many ways balls can be therapeutic. All of these activities involve using eye-hand coordination, balance, and core strength which are great skills to have for a variety of gross motor and fine motor activities. These activities can also help with ocular motor skills as your child needs to track the object through space.

There are many types of equipment and materials used during therapy that can be adapted to meet the needs of your child. You can find these materials and many more around your house in order to improve your child’s skills so he or she can be successful in school and play activities!

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Success looks different for every child... But we bet we have a story that matches your child's needs. Like James, who started with us as non-speaking and lacking the ability to initiate and maintain social interactions. Today, he can speak complete sentences, clearly state his needs, and navigate social interactions with his friends!

Our infant daughter was in physical therapy with Anna Zahn for about five months.  Anna was consistent, patient, and wonderful with our daughter.  Anna was also clear in her communications with us as parents which helped us understand our daughter's progress and needs, as well as how we could help our daughter at home.  While we are proud that our daughter graduated PT, we will miss Anna's warmth and kindness.

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I cannot say enough nice things about the staff! My son worked with Khadija as his ABA therapist and is finishing up this week with his OT, Sabrina. They were really instrumental in helping us navigate a new diagnosis. Both were so easy to approach with questions. From Leeann at the front desk to the RBTs (Alex, Rabbia, Molly, and many others), we always felt so welcomed. It seems like the staff genuinely enjoy their jobs, consistently offering feedback and suggestions on how to help my son.

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We have been working with the amazing team at NSPT for many years. They have been essential in understanding and supporting our child. I recommend their services to anyone looking for their specific type of support.Posted to

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NSPT is fantastic! All of the staff are wonderful, accomodating, and make you feel welcome and comfortable. Alan is fantastic - he has helped our family tremendously and has such patience and purpose in everything he does.

Alex Ehrhardt

North Shore Pediatric Therapy has been amazing.  They have done a great job adjusting to the specific needs of my autistic child.

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My 12 yr old son has a lovely support team in Robert (Social Work) and Lindsay (OT)! He gains so much from his sessions & I gain so much from the communication and brainstorming! Thanks!

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