Children are often referred for support for a specific area of difficulty, such as an inefficient pencil grip. However, underlying skill challenges may also contribute to these difficulties, including reduced core and upper body strength, weak hand muscles, fine motor control difficulties, low muscle tone, and an underdeveloped pincer grasp. A comprehensive assessment allows us to:

• Identify underlying causes: By assessing all areas, we can pinpoint the root cause and tailor a more effective treatment plan.

• Detect early signs of other difficulties: A comprehensive assessment may identify other potential areas of weakness, helping us intervene early and prevent future challenges.

• Provide a holistic view: A comprehensive assessment offers a complete understanding of your child’s sensory-motor development, allowing us to identify how their challenges may influence other areas of development. This includes their emotional regulation, academic performance, and ability to engage in everyday tasks with confidence and independence.

By taking a comprehensive approach, we can ensure that your child receives the most appropriate and effective therapy to address their specific needs.

We understand your eagerness to start therapy, but a thorough assessment is crucial to ensure that your child receives the most effective treatment. On rare occasions, therapists may be able to timetable the full assessment in one sitting, usually booked as a 2 hour block, however often therapists will require 2 separate sessions.

Assessing over two sessions allow us to observe your child's performance over multiple settings and tasks helping ensure results are a more accurate reflection of your child’s ability. This also helps us identify any inconsistencies in their skills and determine if their difficulties are due to specific factors, such as fatigue, concentration difficulties or anxiety.

It’s completely normal to worry about your child’s engagement during the assessment. Our Occupational Therapists spend time on building rapport with children and creating a fun and engaging environment. They use a variety of play-based activities and games to make the assessment as enjoyable as possible.

If your child is feeling anxious or overwhelmed, our OT’s are able to adapt the assessment to meet the child’s individual needs in a more informal way. The goal is to create a positive experience for your child.

• Effective Treatment Planning: By analysing the assessment findings, our OT’s can develop a tailored treatment plan that targets your child's specific needs.

• Progress Monitoring: The initial assessment report serves as a baseline for tracking your child's progress over time. Future assessments can be compared to the initial report to measure improvement.

• Collaboration with Other Professionals: The report can be shared with other professionals, such as teachers and paediatricians, to facilitate a collaborative approach to your child's therapy.

• Funding: In many cases, a detailed report is required or can assist in obtaining funding for therapy services.

The Occupational therapist will engage your child in a variety of tasks to assess key areas of development, including:

• Fine Motor Skills – Hand strength, dexterity, pencil grip, and handwriting skills.

• Gross Motor Skills – Core strength, coordination, balance, and postural control.

• Sensory Processing – How the child responds to sensory input (e.g., touch, movement, sounds, and textures).

• Visual-Motor Integration – The ability to coordinate hand movements with visual input (important for writing, drawing, and playing).

• Hand-Eye Coordination – Skills necessary for tasks such as catching a ball, using utensils, or cutting with scissors.

• Self-Care and Independence – Dressing, feeding, toileting, and other daily living activities.

• Attention and Executive Functioning – Focus, impulse control, problem-solving, and task completion.

• Emotional Regulation and Social Skills – How the child manages emotions, transitions, and social interactions.

The therapist may use a mix of structured tasks, play-based activities, and formal standardised assessments to evaluate these skills.

For younger children, the assessment is often more play-based to create a comfortable and engaging environment. Play activities help the therapist observe movement patterns, coordination, social interactions, and problem-solving abilities in a natural setting.

Assessment Report:

• A comprehensive therapy report will be provided to you. This report will include:

  • Your child's assessment results.

  • Recommendations.

  • Treatment plan should therapy be recommended.

Therapy:

• Therapy sessions are individually planned and tailored to help your child achieve their communication and learning goals. Therapy sessions are engaging and fun to allow your child to reach their full potential. Parents are encouraged to participate in therapy sessions and to evaluate progress.

• Practice at home and outside of therapy sessions is crucial and materials, activities or strategies are often provided after a session. We encourage collaboration with schools, preschools and other professionals, so your child can achieve and generalise their goals in a range of environments and maintain progress.

Session Frequency and Duration:

• Typical Schedule: Therapy sessions are typically scheduled weekly or fortnightly.

• Session Length: Condensed sessions, consisting of 25-minutes face to face therapy weekly, which are usually more suitable for younger children, or full sessions of 45-50 minutes face to face either weekly or fortnightly depending on your child’s difficulties and therapists recommendations.

We understand that you may have questions about why we seek input from other professionals, such as teachers, psychologists, and speech-language pathologists however collaboration across disciplines is essential for gaining a well-rounded understanding of your child’s needs and in order to provide the most effective support.

1. Comprehensive Understanding

Occupational therapy focuses on various areas of development, including fine and gross motor skills, sensory processing, self-care, and emotional regulation. These areas often overlap with other developmental challenges. Gathering insights from different professionals helps us gain a holistic view of your child’s strengths and areas for growth. For example, teachers can provide valuable observations about how your child functions in the classroom, including:

• Their ability to sit and attend to tasks.

• Handwriting and fine motor coordination.

• Self-regulation and ability to manage transitions.

2. Identifying Underlying Factors

Many difficulties that impact daily activities are linked to other developmental areas. Input from different professionals helps identify these underlying factors:

• Speech and Language Challenges: A Speech pathologist can assess whether communication difficulties affect a child's ability to follow instructions, express needs, or engage in social interactions.

• Cognitive and Emotional Factors: A psychologist can evaluate for anxiety, attention difficulties, or executive functioning challenges that may impact self-regulation and participation.

• Medical or Developmental Considerations: A paediatrician or other healthcare provider may offer insights into conditions affecting social skills, attention, muscle tone, coordination, or sensory processing.

3. Developing a Holistic Treatment Plan

Understanding a child’s overall development allows for a more tailored and effective therapy plan. Collaboration between professionals ensures that all aspects of your child’s needs are addressed.

4. Understanding Function Across Different Environments

A child's ability to engage in activities may vary depending on the environment. Observing and gathering information from multiple settings (home, school, therapy) provides valuable insights into:

• How they manage daily routines and transitions.

• Whether they struggle more with self-regulation in busy or structured settings.

• How their motor and sensory challenges impact their ability to participate in learning and play.

If you have had a comprehensive assessment and a report (typically involves the use of standardised/non-standardised assessment) from a registered Occupational Therapist completed within the last 12 months and can provide this prior, it will be reviewed by our senior clinicians and a decision made as to whether you require a full initial assessment or a screen/review at your first therapy session. In some cases, it may be recommended that a parent session be conducted prior to starting therapy.

At Kids Inspired we have therapists who can provide preschool/school-based therapy sessions however not all of our therapists offer regular offsite visits. If you require sessions to be held offsite, please let us know as there is often an additional waitlist for mobile sessions.

Travel fees will apply for all off site sessions.