Physical: Skills that involve movements of your body to do a task

• Balance: Ability to maintain your body in an upright position during physical tasks
• Bilateral coordination: Using both hands together to complete a task
• Co-contraction: When both muscles around a joint are activated to keep the body or body parts steady during a task
• Coordination: When all your body parts work together in a smooth way to complete a task efficiently
• Digit opposition: The ability to individually touch the tips of each of your fingers to the tip of your thumb, facilitating skills like pinching and manipulating small objects
• Fine motor skills: Small movements of the hands and fingers, like writing, pinching, and buttoning
• Grip strength: Ability to hold objects of different weights in your hand and then use them for activities
• Gross motor skills: Large movements of the body like walking, jumping, skipping, and throwing
• Gross strength: The ability to apply the necessary force to complete a task using large muscle groups, like opening a heavy door, pushing a wheelbarrow, or carrying a watering can
• Hand-eye coordination: Using your hands and eyes together to accomplish a task
• In-hand manipulation: Ability to move an object around in one hand without using the other hand or another object to help do the task
• Motor planning: The ability to plan out, prepare for, and execute skilled or novel movements
• Range of motion: The ability to move your body parts in different directions to complete tasks
• Visual perceptual skills: The brain's ability to interpret visual information and combine it with thinking skills to accomplish tasks
• Visual skills: Using your eyes to help you navigate around your environment

Cognitive: Skills that involve your brain and thinking skills

• Attention: Maintaining focus on a specific task
• Compare and contrast: Making objective and subjective observations of 2 or more things to identify their differences and similarities
• Executive functioning: Involves many higher-level cognitive skills that help you successfully complete everyday tasks, including skills like planning, problem solving, attention, memory, and more
• Inhibition: The ability to stop yourself from doing something that is no longer necessary
• Memory: Recalling previously learned information to help accomplish a task
• Planning: Thinking ahead to decide what steps or actions are necessary to complete a task
• Problem solving: Thinking about and implementing different ways to address an issue and accomplish a task
• Sequencing: Thinking through and completing the steps of a task in an effective order

Sensory: Skills that involve how your body and brain interact with the environment

Basic/External senses

• Auditory: Hearing
• Visual: Seeing
• Olfactory: Smelling
• Tactile: Touching
• Gustatory: Tasting

Internal senses

• Vestibular: Contributes to your sense of balance
• Proprioception: Knowing where your body is in space
• Interoception: Receives cues from inside your body on what you're feeling
• Sensory avoiding: When it is difficult and overwhelming for a person to tolerate very much sensory input
• Sensory craving: When it is difficult for a person to get enough sensory input to be able to focus and participate in daily activities
• Sensory integration/Sensory processing: The brain's ability to perceive, process, and generate responses to sensory information from outside and inside our bodies
• Sensory regulation: Achieving a calm emotional state using strategies to manage sensory interactions with the environment

Social/Emotional: Skills that involve feelings or interactions with other people

• Communication: Expressing yourself to others, making your needs known to others
• Creativity: Ability to generate and carry out unique ideas and plans
• Emotional regulation: Strategies that help you manage your emotions
• Patience: Ability to persevere through prolonged delays or issues while maintaining a sense of calmness
• Perseverance: Ability to see a difficult task through to completion even when facing obstacles
• Resilience: Ability to recover from and adjust to adversity and obstacles
• Socialization: Interacting and connecting with others to accomplish some sort of goal, whether it be for sharing ideas, personal enjoyment, or completion of a task
• Teamwork: Problem solving, communication, and accomplishing tasks with others
• Cooperation: Doing the necessary steps to complete a task, either individually or as a group effort

Resources

For detailed information about physical, cognitive, and social skills, see the following resource from the American Occupational Therapy Association: https://www.aota.org/practice/domain-and-process/skills-and-routines

For more detailed information on sensory systems, see the following website from Star Institute: https://sensoryhealth.org/basic/your-8-senses