Occupational Therapy in Hauz Khas

Occupational therapy in Hauz Khas is the least well understood service we offer, so it is worth starting with what it is: helping someone do the ordinary things a day is made of. Dressing, handwriting, eating, sitting still enough to learn, tolerating noise and touch. The short answer is our Malviya Nagar centre, because we do not have a centre in Hauz Khas. It is not physiotherapy, and it is not tuition.

Which eMbrace centre Hauz Khas families use

Our centre is in Malviya Nagar, one Yellow Line stop south of Hauz Khas metro station, at FC-29, Plot No. 5, Geetanjali, beside Malviya Nagar Metro Station Gate No. 1. There is no eMbrace centre in Hauz Khas itself.

For families in Hauz Khas, SDA, Safdarjung Development Area and Gulmohar Park, the metro is usually faster than driving down Aurobindo Marg at school-run hours, and a single stop with no interchange is manageable even with a child who finds travel difficult.

The centre sits inside Rainbow Children's Hospital, so if an assessment points towards speech therapy, occupational therapy or physiotherapy, those run in the same building rather than at a second address across the city.

Weekly to begin with, often reducing as a home and school programme takes over. Occupational therapy is unusual in how much of it is environmental: changing a chair, a pencil grip, a routine or a classroom seat can matter more than another session. That means the useful measure of progress is not what happens in the gym here, it is whether mornings at home got easier.

For parking, the nearest drop-off point and the quickest route at your particular time of day, ask on the intake call. Traffic and parking around every one of these centres change enough through the day that current directions from someone who works there beat anything we could fix on a web page.

What occupational therapy actually addresses

Broadly three things: fine motor and hand skills, sensory processing, and the practical independence that both feed into. A child may come because handwriting is illegible and leave with work on shoulder stability and pencil grip. Another comes because they cannot tolerate a school assembly and the work is about regulation and sensory strategy.

• Handwriting that is slow, effortful, painful or illegible despite practice
• Strong reactions to noise, texture, clothing, food or touch that shrink daily life
• Difficulty with buttons, laces, cutlery, or self-care well past the usual age
• A child described as clumsy, who avoids playgrounds, bikes or ball games
• Difficulty settling to a task, where the underlying problem is regulation rather than attention

Sensory processing, handwriting, fine motor skills and daily living each have their own page on our occupational therapy hub.

What the first appointment involves

An assessment through observation and structured tasks rather than questionnaires: watching how a child moves, grips, balances, organises themselves and responds to sensory input, alongside a history from you about which parts of the day are hardest.

You leave with a small number of goals framed as daily tasks rather than as abstractions, so the target is fastening a shirt or writing a paragraph without pain, not improving fine motor skills in general. Most of the plan is things to change at home and school.

What we see most of here

From Hauz Khas and SDA referrals skew older, where handwriting speed rather than legibility is the problem and exams are the pressure. That work overlaps with the accommodations question, and we say plainly when a report rather than more therapy is what is needed.

Sensory work with older children and teenagers is the second strand, focused on independent strategy rather than adult-managed accommodation.

Who you would see at our Malviya Nagar centre

Dr Supriya Malik, Founder and CEO, and Head of the Child Development Centre at Rainbow

PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Birmingham, where she was also a postdoctoral researcher, and a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society in the UK. She designed the assessment and therapy pathways every eMbrace centre runs.

Occupational therapy runs at our Malviya Nagar centre inside Rainbow. The occupational therapist named on this site, Dr Agrima Aggarwal, works from our Vasant Kunj and Gurugram centres, so who you would see at Malviya Nagar is confirmed on the intake call rather than assumed here. If seeing a specific therapist matters to you, say so when you call and we will tell you which centre to book.

Schools and services we already work with

Occupational therapy around Hauz Khas is usually part of something larger, and these are the settings it connects to.

Our Malviya Nagar centre runs inside Rainbow Children's Hospital, New Delhi, which is why occupational therapy, physiotherapy, speech therapy, behaviour therapy and special education sit in the same building as assessment.

Fees and how long it runs

Fees are quoted upfront on your intake call. Courses usually run in blocks of eight to twelve weekly sessions with a review at the end, and frequency often reduces once the home and school programme is doing the work.

Progress is judged against the daily tasks written at the start. If a child is doing better in the therapy room and no better at home, that is a signal the plan needs to change rather than continue.

Frequently asked questions