Occupational Therapy
The number one referral our play therapy practice makes to outside resources is to occupational therapists. It can be confusing for parents to know what the difference is between services for play therapy and occupational therapy. Not only that, but the two can overlap and the services complement each other in a lot of ways. The biggest difference is that occupational therapists understand and focus on the physical component of a child's needs, while play therapists focus on the emotional component. So while you might see either a play therapist or an occupational therapist to get support for a child's tantrums, the occupational therapist might be assessing what the child's physical need is (less auditory stimulation, for example) and how to meet that need preemptively, while the play therapist may be assessing how to help the child with the anxiety they experience when they're overstimulated. We refer to occupational therapists when we feel like it seems like the behavior is meeting a physical need more than an emotional one. Occupational therapists (OTs) refer to us when it seems like the need is more emotional and less physical.
Occupational therapists can assess a child's sensory needs and experiences in a variety of areas (vestibular, proprioceptive, oral motor, auditory, tactile, visual, olfactory, interoceptive, and gustatory systems) and environments (home, school, car, with peers, etc) to understand what their body needs and how to help them meet those needs preemptively. That could mean anticipating that transitions from the car to the classroom are difficult and incorporating a physical activity that could help them regulate during that time, or making a plan for how to gradually desensitize them to touches that feel overwhelming so that hair brushing can be less painful. See this post for more on sensory needs.
OTs create plans for use at home, called "sensory diets" that contain exercises, games, or activities that meet each child's predicted sensory needs before the need becomes distressing or debilitating. By knowing what our kids are likely needing in a specific meltdown (ie maybe walking into Walmart is an assault on the auditory and visual senses and kids don't have the language to verbalize it, for example) we can try to anticipate that need and either 1. have a plan to accommodate the need in the moment (in this case, noise reducing headphones for walmart, or a quiet activity to do in the shopping cart to reduce the impact of the bright lights, loud sounds, and crowds), or 2. a plan for how to anticipate and meet the need in advance (in this case, lots of jumping and swinging to meet sensory-seeking needs before school so that a child is less likely to need to meet that need by hugging friends too hard). In most cases, OTs try to create sensory diets that are realistic and can be incorporated into daily life without a lot of drastic changes or expensive equipment.
For more about occupational therapy, see my post about OT evaluations and how to get started with an OT if you think you or your child might benefit.
