An Occupational Therapy evaluation- based on parent, teacher and child concerns, I will use standardized and non- standardized tests to assess different skills including gross motor skills, fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor integration including handwriting and copying from a blackboard and/ or text, oral motor and eating skills, ocular motor abilities; tracking skills, sensory processing skills, and daily living skills.

The following provides a brief description of the important skills that are assessed during the evaluation;

• Fine motor skills- These are the small muscles in the hands and fingers that enable tasks of dexterity, manipulation, pinching, grasping, buttoning, zippering, holding pencils, crayons, keyboarding, and using classroom tools and eating with utensils.
• Gross motor skills- includes the involvement of large muscle groups in the arms and legs. Tasks evaluated include hopping, skipping, jumping, performing arm and leg movements simultaneously and alternate patterns
• Visual Motor Skills-This includes the movement based on processing of visual stimuli. Tasks include copying from the board, handwriting, and reproducing shapes.
• Oral Motor Skills- Movement that occur in the mouth, lips, tongue and jaw that allow chewing, licking, sucking and biting during eating.
• Ocular Motor skills- The ability of the child to use both eyes together to follow visual stimuli in a text or while looking at overhead work presented in the classroom.
• Self care skills- The child’s level of independence while performing daily life tasks including dressing; toileting, feeding, hygiene and other self care tasks.
• Sensory processing skills- The ability to make sense out of internal and external stimuli through the senses. The brain forms combined pictures of the information received through the senses and then meaningful, purposeful actions are taken. There is an important link between sensory processing and behavior.
• Motor planning- The ability to plan, organize and execute motor tasks. This is an important part of sensory processing and involves a good deal of sequencing and prioritizing the order in which an action must be performed.