A child does not experience home and school as completely separate worlds. The same child moves between both environments every day, bringing with them their sensory preferences, regulation needs, communication style, strengths, interests and energy levels.
Yet it is very common for parents and schools to have different experiences of the same child. A child may appear settled in school but arrive home completely exhausted. They may manage a particular routine at home but find something similar much harder in the classroom. A strategy that works well with a parent may not translate easily into a busy school environment.
This is where collaborative Occupational Therapy support can be especially valuable and it's an area we work on everyday with parents and schools through our Parent & School Collaboration option - https://www.gabadoo.com/parents
Parents sometimes hear, “We don’t really see that in school.” Equally, teachers may be surprised to hear just how much support a child needs once they get home.
Neither experience is necessarily wrong. Different environments place different demands on a child.
School may involve noise and movement, social interaction, transitions, following group instructions, handwriting and academic demands, managing belongings, sitting for longer periods, busy corridors and playgrounds, and changing expectations throughout the day.
A child may use a great deal of energy managing these demands. They might appear to cope successfully during school and then need significant recovery time when they return home.
Understanding the whole day can give us a much clearer picture than looking at either environment in isolation.
Occupational Therapists look at the relationship between the person, the activity and the environment.
When parents and schools work with the same therapist or therapy team, we can begin to bring information together. This may include exploring sensory processing, regulation, communication, fatigue and energy, transitions, motor skills, executive functioning, daily routines, environmental demands and what is already working well.
Instead of separate strategies being created for home and school, everyone can develop a shared understanding of the child.
A common goal is to create more consistency between home and school. However, consistency does not mean every adult responding in exactly the same way.
Home and school are very different environments. A sensory strategy that works easily at home may not be realistic in a classroom of 30 children. A school routine may also need to look very different from a family routine.
The important part is having a shared understanding of why the child may be finding something difficult.
For example, if everyone understands that a child finds unpredictable transitions particularly demanding, support can be adapted appropriately in both places. At home, this might involve giving more preparation before leaving the house. At school, it might involve a visual schedule, transition warning or predictable routine.
The strategies differ, but the understanding behind them is the same.
For autistic children and other neurodivergent children, regulation can change significantly throughout the day.
A child may begin school regulated and ready to participate but gradually use up their available energy. Noise, social demands, movement, concentration, communication and sensory input all require resources.
By the end of the day, the same child may have far less capacity available. This can help explain why parents sometimes see significant emotional responses, shutdown, withdrawal or a strong need for movement after school.
When parents, teachers and therapists share information, it becomes easier to recognise these patterns and ask what is helping the child stay regulated, where they are using the most energy, what could be adapted and what recovery may need to look like after school.
Parents know an enormous amount about their child. They may know early signs that their child is becoming overwhelmed, sensory experiences their child seeks or avoids, how much recovery they need after school, activities that help them reconnect, communication that works well, changes in sleep or energy, and what their child says about school at home.
This information can be incredibly valuable to the school team.
Similarly, teachers and SNAs see the child participating in environments that parents may never directly observe. They may notice patterns around handwriting, group activities, transitions, playgrounds, classroom noise or particular times of the day.
Bringing both perspectives together creates a much fuller picture.
Good autism support should not be about making an autistic child appear less autistic. It should be about creating environments where they can participate while being understood and supported as themselves.
That may mean adapting expectations, providing movement opportunities, reducing unnecessary sensory demands, offering more processing time, supporting communication, allowing different ways of participating, creating predictability, and recognising the need for rest and recovery.
The goal is not compliance. The goal is meaningful participation, regulation, connection and wellbeing.
Families can sometimes end up with a long list of recommendations from different professionals, while the school may have another list entirely.
Collaborative Occupational Therapy can help simplify this. Rather than continually adding more strategies, we can look at what the actual difficulty is, what seems to be contributing to it, what is already helping, which supports are realistic and what should be prioritised first.
Often, a small number of well-understood strategies are more effective than a long programme nobody has time to use.
One of the biggest benefits of collaborative support is developing shared language.
Instead of one person describing a child as “not listening” while another describes them as “overwhelmed”, the team can explore what may actually be happening. Instead of saying a child “refuses handwriting”, we might recognise that handwriting is requiring significant motor, postural or cognitive effort.
Shared understanding can completely change how adults respond. And when adults respond differently, children often experience less stress.
Joint parent and school Occupational Therapy support may be particularly useful when home and school are seeing very different things, a child has recently been identified as autistic, sensory needs are affecting school participation, transitions are difficult, school is taking a significant amount of energy, parents are concerned about after-school dysregulation, strategies are not transferring between home and school, teachers and parents want a shared plan, or the child is moving into a new classroom or school.
You do not need to wait until things reach crisis point. Sometimes a conversation between the people who know the child best can identify helpful changes much earlier.
At Gabadoo, our Occupational Therapy team works with parents, teachers and school staff together.
Our approach is strengths-based, neuro-affirmative, regulation-focused and centred around the child’s everyday occupations.
Depending on the situation, support may include parent consultations, school consultations, joint parent and school meetings, classroom or school visits, environmental recommendations, sensory and regulation support, practical strategy planning and follow-up plans that can be shared across home and school.
Our aim is not to provide another list of instructions. It is to help everyone around the child develop a shared understanding of what supports them.
When parents, schools and therapists are working from the same understanding, support becomes more consistent, practical and meaningful.
Most importantly, the child is less likely to experience adults trying to solve different versions of the same problem. Instead, everyone can work together towards the same goal: helping the child feel understood, regulated and able to participate in everyday life as themselves.
If you are a Parent/Caregiver, follow this link - https://www.gabadoo.com/parents
If you are a school, follow this link - https://www.gabadoo.com/school-occupational-therapy-support
