Impaired development in social interaction and communication, and a markedly restricted repertoire of activities and interestsAcademic/preacademic skills: Conceptual skills, such as letter and word understanding, as well as understanding of numbers and math concepts. Also, requires the ability to integrate previously learned facts with newly presented information.
Asperger’s (also called Asperger syndrome, Asperger’s disorder): An autism spectrum disorder (ASD), named after Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger. It is characterized by impairment in social abilities; restricted, stereotyped patterns of behavior and interests; as well as normal cognition. Children with Asperger’s typically do not display delays in language; however, they do struggle with pragmatic language.
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): A neurobehavioral development disorder that affects an estimated 1 in 20 children in the United States. It is twice as common in boys as in girls, and it is characterized by consistent inattention and impulsivity. Attention deficit disorder (ADD) is without the hyperactivity component.
Auditory discrimination: The ability to recognize small differences in sounds (e.g., “ba” and “pa,” or the class bell from a fire drill). It also allows us to locate sound in a large space.
Auditory (hearing): The hearing sense, which allows one to locate, capture, and discriminate sounds.
Autism: A developmental disability that is marked by impairments in normal communication, social interaction, and behavior and usually manifests before the age of two or three. It is estimated that approximately 1 in 150 children are affected with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), with boys four times more likely to be affected than girls. Reports have shown that early detection and intervention are paramount to limiting the disabling impacts of autism. Some of the behavioral characteristics of autism are:
Impaired development in social interaction and communication, and a markedly restricted repertoire of activities and interests
Absence or delay of speech and language, although specific thinking capabilities may be present
Restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities
Marked sensory processing difficulties, with one or many of the sensory systems impacted: visual, hearing, touch, vestibular (balance and motion), proprioceptive (body sense)
Bilateral coordination: The use of both sides of the body, both hands, both feet, as well as the head integrating with the core of the body. It relies on integrating information from the two sides of the body, which is bilateral integration.
Communication: The exchange of thoughts and information through body language, speech, or writing.
Crossing the midline: This refers to the ability to cross over the midline or middle of the body, easily and smoothly—for example, reaching across the body with the right hand to pick up a cup on the left side of body, or moving the eyes smoothly across a page, left to right, without moving head. This is a prerequisite for many sensorimotor and academic skills.
Dyspraxia: Refers to a disorganized or impaired ability to think of, initiate or plan, and carry out sensory and motor tasks.
Expressive language: Using tone of voice, gestures, words, and rate of speech; the language used to convey thoughts, feelings, or events.
Eye-hand coordination skills: The ability to coordinate the eyes to hand movement, allowing a person to copy, write, put together a puzzle, and cut accurately.
Eye skills: Eye skills refer to the ocular-motor skills of the eyes that require muscle, strength, coordination, and timing as with any other motor skills. The vestibular system controls the small muscles of the eyes. This is why occupational therapists will always look at the vestibular system’s role if there are visual difficulties. It is important to note that a child may have twenty-twenty vision and still have visual skill deficits. Difficulties with eye skills impact academic behavior as well as physical coordination skills. Eye skills include:
Saccades: Quick eye movements used for scanning
Pursuits: Smooth tracking movements used to follow moving targets or to track a fixed target while the body is in motion
Fixation: Ability of the eyes to keep focused on a nonmoving target
Mobility: Ability of eyes to move in full range of motion
Motility: Ability of the eyes to move
Eye teaming: Ability of the eyes to converge and work together; allows for binocular vision; critical for reading
Convergence: The movement of the eyes toward one another
Divergence: The movement of the eyes away from each other, which the eyes must do when looking in the distance
Fine motor skills: The basic skills performed by the hand and fingers. They include gripping, pinching, pincer grasp (thumb to index finger to pick up small objects), thumb and finger opposition, and in-hand manipulation skills. Fine motor skills allow for functional skills such as buttoning, tying shoes, turning a doorknob, holding a pencil correctly, as well as using eating utensils.
Gustatory (taste): The tasting sense; it is one of two “chemical” senses.
In-hand manipulation skills: The skills developed through separation of the two sides of the hand that allow for a balance between skills and power. It is essential for the development of more refined fine motor skills.
Joint attention: An early social skill that allows people to share experiences of observing an object or event by following gaze or pointing gestures. It is the foundation for social development, language acquisition, and cognitive development.
Language: A set of symbols used by people to communicate. They can be written, spoken, or gestures (sign language).
Olfactory (smell): The smelling sense; it is one of the two “chemical” senses. It registers and categorizes information about the odors encountered by sensing the chemicals in the air.
Position in space: The ability to relate to objects in the environment as well as one’s own body in terms of orientation and organization—for example, in front, behind, backward, and so on.
Pragmatic (social language): Includes rules, written and understood, concerning how people interact in social situations. Involves three communications skills:
Using components of reciprocal language or relating a story, including staying on topic, taking turns in a conversation, and using verbal and nonverbal signals
Ability to use language for different purposes
Modifying language based on who you are communicating with (e.g., baby or adults, inside or outside, familiar person or stranger)
Praxis: Often referred to as motor planning, the ability of the brain to plan and carry out an action, motor or language. The steps of praxis are ideation, motor planning, and execution. We use more praxis when an action is unfamiliar to us or we are doing a familiar action in a new environment.
Proprioception (body position): Body awareness; the “left hand knows what your right hand is doing” sense. It communicates where all of the body parts are relative to the others and how they are moving in relation to each other.
Receptive language: The ability to understand what is heard and perceived from others’ gestures and facial expressions. Before children can communicate their own thoughts and desires, they must first learn to connect meaning to objects and actions.
Sensory integration: The neurological process by which information from the body and the environment is taken in, analyzed, and categorized in the brain so meaning can be attached to it. The basic senses integrate in such a way as to give an immediate and complete picture of one’s self and the world around him or her. For example, the visual system working together with the vestibular and proprioceptive systems allow for visual motor coordination, which lets one respond to a ball moving toward that person, extend the hands, and catch it.
Sensory modulation: The ability to receive sensory information, “monitor” the input, and then adjust accordingly. Sensory modulation disorder has three categories:
Overreactive: Explosive, disruptive, and avoidant behavior
Underreactive: Distracted and withdrawn
Sensory seeking: Distracting behavior (fidgeters and crashers)
Tactile sense: The sense of touch that has two components:
Discriminative: The ability to discriminate valuable information about the properties of what is being touched
Defensive: Stimulated by light touch and often overactive in autistic children
Theory of mind: The term used to describe a set of mental processes that are used to plan, organize, strategize, and attend to and remember details. Impairments in executive function impact a child’s ability to examine ideas, make plans, complete work in a timely manner, or ask for help as well as more information when needed.
Vestibular (movement-balance): The three-dimensional “you are here” marker allowing one to understand where the body is in relation to the ground.
Visual-motor integration: The ability to take images from a vertical to a horizontal plane, which are foundational for visual-motor skills.
Visual (seeing): The seeing sense, which provides one with information about the color, shape, and distance of objects from one another, as well as movement of objects and people.
Visual-motor skills: The ability to coordinate visual information with the movement of the body.
Visual-perceptual skills: The brain’s ability to take in the visual information from the eyes, integrate it with information from the other senses, and make use of it. Visual-perceptual skills are broken down as follows:
Visual discrimination: The ability to discriminate visual likeness and difference, figure-ground from foreground; visual closure (fill in visual information).
Visual memory: The ability to visually recall past information.
Visualization: The ability to take the visual information that you already know and use it to project a new visual scenario into the future.