Occupational Therapy in South Delhi

Occupational therapy in South Delhi 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 either of our two south Delhi centres, Malviya Nagar or Vasant Kunj, and which one is a question of your journey rather than of the service. It is not physiotherapy, and it is not tuition.

Which eMbrace centre South Delhi families use

Both our Delhi centres are in south Delhi, which makes this the one part of the city where you have a real choice rather than a nearest option.

eMbrace at Rainbow, Malviya Nagar, at FC-29, Plot No. 5, Geetanjali, sits beside Malviya Nagar Metro Station Gate No. 1 on the Yellow Line. It is the closer centre from Saket, Hauz Khas, Green Park, Greater Kailash and Defence Colony, and because it runs inside Rainbow Children's Hospital, therapy across occupational therapy, speech therapy and physiotherapy is in the same building.

eMbrace Vasant Kunj, at C-7, Sector C, Pocket 5, Grand Vasant Kunj, is the closer centre from Vasant Vihar, Munirka, R.K. Puram and Safdarjung Enclave, and carries the larger clinical team.

If you are unsure which to pick, the free intake call sorts it out in a couple of minutes, and we would rather do that than have you drive to the wrong side of Aurobindo Marg.

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

Across south Delhi handwriting is the single commonest reason for referral, usually raised by schools in the middle primary years, with sensory processing close behind.

The other pattern is older students where handwriting speed rather than legibility is the issue and exams are the pressure, which is as much an accommodations question as a therapy one.

Who you would see

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.

Across our Delhi centres, the clinicians who take this work are:

Dr Agrima Aggarwal, Occupational Therapist

Dr Agrima Aggarwal is a PhD scholar in Occupational Therapy at Mahatma Gandhi University of Medical Sciences and Technology. She holds an MOT in Neurology from SVNIRTAR, Utkal University, where she was gold medallist, and a BOT from PDUNIPPD, University of Delhi. She works in paediatric occupational therapy and early intervention, alongside neurorehabilitation and cognitive rehabilitation.

Which of them you see is decided on the intake call rather than by whoever has the next free slot, and you are told who it will be before you book. Fuller biographies are on our about page.

Schools and services we already work with

Occupational therapy around South Delhi 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.

At the American Embassy School in Chanakyapuri we carry out psychoeducational, cognitive, comprehensive and brief assessments, including risk assessments, and provide therapy for children and adolescents.

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