Visual perceptual skills involve taking in visual information from the eye and how the brain makes sense of what the eyes see. This skill can impact all areas of everyday life. In children they may impact school skills such as handwriting, cutting, copying information from a board, reading, and math problems. They can also affect self-care skills such as clothing orientation, completing fasteners, cooking, and eating. They may also affect a child’s ability to engage in certain areas of play such as completing puzzles, playing board games, memory games, and block pattern construction. There ar ..read more

Cutting is a skill that kids need for school and other activities. It is an important fine motor skill that kids can often be behind on because of lack of exposure. Cutting combines several skills including fine motor coordination, bilateral coordination, and visual motor integration. Cutting can be challenging for many of our kids and requires a certain amount of fine motor strength. To begin your child’s interest in cutting you can start with tearing. Tearing pieces of paper to make a collage or glued on to an animal picture is a fun way to introduce paper cutting. As your child begins to h ..read more

Painting with Q-tips can be a fun and easy to clean up way to work on fine motor skills. We like to use small paints with a twist off lid to encourage bilateral coordination and hand strengthening. These Crayola washable paints are a great choice! Besides being washable they are also just the right height for dipping the q-tip into! In addition, paints are also great for additional skills such as: color identification and opening/closing containers.  Plus, because they can get messy is allows your child to do sensory exploration and then hand washing skills once their artwork ..read more

Playing with play dough can be an easy and fun way to work on fine motor, coordination, and sensory exploration. We use play dough to encourage finger dexterity, hand strengthening, visual perceptual skills, and exploring messy play. Play dough is a low resistance hand and finger strengthening activity that can include a variety of benefits of fine motor coordination, encouraging creativity, and development of hand-eye coordination by allowing them to manipulate the materials to fit their creative ideas.   Participating in play dough activities allow children to play with their hands and ..read more

Kids love Halloween so it’s a great time to get creative and provide some activities to match the holiday! This year we are relying on our imagination so that we can tailor the activities to the individual kids and disciplines. The way we did this is we searched for free images and printed out various Halloween images and taped them up around the clinic. Some examples are: Jack-o-Lantern Blow up an orange balloon and color a face on it. Use this ‘jack-o-lantern’ for practicing catching and throwing or batting it along with a hand or racket. You can do this on level ground, on a balance board ..read more

Back to school is a great time to address handwriting skills. As children enter pre-school and kindergarten handwriting concerns are often brought up by parents and teachers working with the child. Addressing handwriting challenges are not simple, as handwriting is complex that involves many different skills before we can have the expectation for a child to be successful. This post will discuss the breakdown of handwriting skills expected at each age and writing utensil grasp. The building blocks to handwriting include: Pre-writing skills Postural control Fine motor control (including pincer ..read more

In our previous post ‘Sensory Integration and Dysregulation‘ we provided you with background information and you may be wondering – What am I supposed to do now? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here are some activities that target different areas of the sensory system: Tactile/Touch: Play dough activities. Fidgets Moon sand Sensory bins Proprioception/Heavy work: Running Climbing Pushing something heavy Pulling something heavy Carrying something heavy Monkey bars Jumping on trampoline Vestibular: Swings Wobble board Balance board activities Spin in circles Dance party Tumbles Hopscot ..read more

The sensory system includes what we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch and what it tells us about our environment. The sense’s responsibility is to receive information from both outside and inside of our bodies and communicate those to our nervous system. Sensory integration is how our senses organize and process the information that our senses are receiving. When our sensory system is working together, we are able interact within our environment appropriately, purposefully, and meaningfully. However, when our sensory system is not working together is when we notice our bodies feeling dysregu ..read more

Imitate: Once your little one is standing you can start playing with this. Pretend you are jumping and have them try to imitate you. This will usually look like bouncing with their knees bending and straightening. It is so much easier for them to learn to jump when they want to do it. Jump on the Bed: Yes, you read that correctly. It’s easiest to do this in the crib, where they can place their hands on the railing for support. If your little one is out of the crib already, jumping on soft surfaces, like a mattress or couch cushions, will provide momentum to help them clear the surface. You c ..read more

With the release of the 2022 CDC surveillance checklists there is a lot of confusion and uncertainty. This is because the age for many milestones was pushed back and crawling was removed. As a result we want to take the time to talk about the mini milestones your child needs to hit in order to hit some of the bigger milestones. These are often the things we look at when a parent asks if they should be concerned. For instance if a parent says ‘my child isn’t walking yet should I be worried’, my first question is what are they doing currently. This is a good indicator of if they are on track or ..read more