The Best Occupational Therapy Toys For All Ages & Stages

Sensory toys engage our senses, and this is exceptionally important for infants. A good sensory toy, Davis explains, engages sight, hearing, sense of touch, sense of smell, sense of taste, and perception of the body. These sensorially-focused occupational therapy toys for kids of all ages help babies and kids to get a good grasp on their sensory experience, which “contributes to our sense of safety and autonomy of our own body,” she explains.

“Visual/motor development starts as early as when the baby is developing in utero, and continues on through infancy, early childhood, and even into adulthood with more refined movements and activities,” Davis says. Throughout our lifetime, we build on visual motor skills we learned from a young age, like tying shoes, writing, or opening containers.

“When kids build with blocks, cut paper, scribble with crayons, and catch a ball, they are learning how to use their hands and eyes together to complete tasks that they encounter every day,” Davis says.

Gross motor skills are skills that require our entire body to complete, Davis explains. These toys help kids develop their gross motor skills by encouraging both sides of the body to work together. They strengthen the upper body, address balance, and help with lower body strength and core strength to ensure we’re able to use all of our parts to complete whatever activities we need to do.

For babies, learning to crawl, sit up, and walk are activities that nurture and develop gross motor skills. Tummy time is an important way to develop gross motor skills early on, and Davis says it’s “one of the best ways to address engaging the muscles in the neck, core and shoulders.”

Gross motor skills activities for toddlers and young kids including running, jumping and climbing, Davis says — basically anything they’d do at a playground. “Meeting these milestones can help aid in completing things that we do every day,” Davis explains.

Fine motor skills help fine-tune the “tiny intricate muscles in our hands and wrists and make very precise movements,” Davis explains. “Tasks and activities for practicing and working on fine motor skill development include writing, cutting, puzzles, opening containers, manipulating fasteners, or even typing this very sentence,” she says.

While on the surface pretend play may not seem like helpful with developmental milestones, Davis says it addresses our executive functioning skills, meaning the cognitive control of our behavior. “Executive functioning skills are a set of mental skills that help us every single day,” says Davis. Pretend play helps with “memory, attention, managing time, planning, organizing, self-regulation, flexible thinking and self-monitoring.”

Apparently, board games address many things at the same time, depending on the game and the skill level needed. “You can address taking turns, hand-eye coordination, social skills, fine motor development (think tiny game pieces and being able to move that piece to a specific place), shape/color/word recognition, and depending on the game, gross motor skills. Board games are a fun way to mask a lot of ‘work,’ plus it brings people together,” she says.

Developmental toys for infants through 2 years old are all about sensory skills, fine motor precision, and gross motor play, Davis explains. “You don’t need a lot of equipment/things for little kiddos, but a safe place on the floor with engaging things can meet so many developmental needs and milestones,” she says.

These toys are designed to “keep little thinkers busy”, as Davis puts it. The busy board helps kids practice and prepare for dressing themselves, the blocks work both gross and fine motor skills, the stacking toy and marble maze are both visually stimulating that are fun to play with, and the Tangram puzzle works on fine motor skills, planning, organizing, memory, as well as visual motor, she says.

“The key to this age group is finding things that address multiple skills all at once,” explains Davis. “Their bodies and brains are always on the move!”

“For this age group, I tried to find games and puzzles because of the intrinsic drive to want to finish something or win at something is strong in this age group,” Davis says. These games run the gambit on what they work on — everything from social skills, to planning, memory to quick mental processing, and even visual scanning.

“This age group is really honing in on life skills like typing, meal preparation, following steps or instructions to complete something, and abstract thinking,” Davis says. The slime is preparation for cooking by following directions, pouring and mixing, the LEGOs show how following instructions leads to a final product, and the writing prompts nurture abstract thinking, planning, handwriting, and skills needed for school, according to Davis.