Child development is layered and higher level skills are only achieved once lower level skills are mastered. Although a child may have high skills in one area of development, they may be missing critical foundational skills in another. For example, a school aged child may be highly verbal with good communication skills but may have poor fine motor skills and be unable to efficiently hold a pencil/write down their thoughts. The expectation based on their speech and language skills may not match up with their motor abilities for school tasks. All of the areas are interconnected. It is important that the foundational skills are strengthened across the board so the child has a solid platform to start from when working on achieving those higher level skills. When there are gaps in skills development, the child may become frustrated and lose confidence in their ability to learn new things and may refuse to work on tasks that are challenging. The child may also be incorrectly viewed as stubborn or defiant when they have instead experienced repeated failure due to being asked to perform tasks above their skill level. This pattern of thinking can be difficult to break and can set a precendent for how they approach challenges throughout their life. If possible, it is important to seek services early so that the OT, caregivers and child can work together to discover how the child learns best and how the team can support that child in being sucessful in their everday occupations.
