Stickers for vestibular-ocular work and stickers for peaceful decorating

Today a child with autism in the learning center (not one of mine) approached my red rolling “teacher box”, staring at the Super Mario stickers all over it. It was free choice time and I happened to have the super mario stickers with me, so I offered them to him as an option. He spent his time peacefully placing the stickers on my rolly box. For those of you in pediatrics, you could consider placing the child in a certain functional/strengthening position (ie tall kneeling, or balancing on one knee, or on a T-stool, etc) and then allow them to decorate an item with stickers while doing so. 

Also, I have spent the evening organizing my visual perceptual/motor box, by the time I am done I will have two gigantic binders (to be fair like an entire one of those binders is duplicates), with visual motor, spatial, visual closure, discrimination, laterality, blah blah blah etc. Also a ton of special random books. I have generically organized it, hole punched, divided, placed in binder, etc for now. It needs more refinement, but I'm trying to tell myself to focus on big picture for now, just getting it all accessible and generally organized, and then I can go back and weed out or re-categorize things as my next step. I tend to obsess over little things and then nothing gets done. I also have a lot of book resources where I either need to make copies (pretty sure Hell consists of making copies, I HATE IT), or make my own versions. One thing I thought of is either making or buying number stickers or alphabet stickers, small, then placing them all over (appropriate) parts of a child's body like arms, torso, legs, etc. Then having the child sit on a T stool or ball or some other unstable surface and have to find stickers in order – whethers it 1 through 10, A-Z, shapes/colors/items you call out, whatever. The child then has to work on staying stable, scanning their body for the stickers, sequencing, crossing midline (ie using L hand to take sticker off R arm), you can put them on forearms etc to encourage supination (holding hands facing upwards like holding a soup bowl), or even on bottom of feet or near bottom of feet to further destabilize…..
As always use discretion, careful supervision with contact guard assist or more as necessary, stay away from areas they could hit their head, etc etc etc, blah blah blah, legal disclaimers, etc, use your best judgment….
Sep 11, 2012 | Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: none