What is Occupational Therapy ?

Occupation as defined by Merriam Webster, is defined as “an activity in which one engages.” Infants, toddlers, and preschoolers engage in a variety of shared and individual occupations everyday: exploring their environments, engaging with others to eating, sleeping, toileting, and playing.  All of these activities provide foundational sensory, motor, cognitive and emotional skills needed for optimal development.

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Occupational therapy holistically looks at a child and what underlying skills may be impacting full engagement, participation and developmentally appropriate independence in those occupations. This can include but is not limited to sensory processing, body awareness, core, neck, and upper extremity strength, fine and visual motor skills, visual perception, and more. Occupational therapists work with families and children to better understand how to support their child’s development to maximize the family’s quality of life.

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Rooted Beginnings LLC provides in-home and community occupational therapy services for infants, toddlers, and young children in Columbia and surrounding areas to facilitate the greatest success and carry over of therapeutic services. Samantha utilizes a DIR Floortime and child-led approach to reach your child's greatest capacities. Samantha provides neurodiversity affirming and strengths based therapy to support autistic children as well as children with developmental delays and sensory processing challenges.