Teaching Colors Using Multi-Sensory Instruction

If you are working with a student who is having difficulty learning his colors, implementing a multi-sensory approach might be effective.

Pair each color with a song. The following songs are nice because each color song has a different tune:

Black Color Song
Red Color Song
Yellow Color Song
Blue Color Song
Green Color Song
Purple Color Song
Orange Color Song

Pair each color with a scent. (The child can even smell the appropriate scent while she sings each color song). Scented markers are great and are available at Amazon.

Black- Licorice                Red-Cherry             Blue-Blueberry
Yellow-Lemon                Green-Mint              Orange-Orange
Brown-Cinnamon         Purple-Grape          Pink-Melon
Turquoise-Mango      Dark Green-Apple    Magenta-Raspberry

Photo Credit Salvatore Vuono @ freedigitalphotos.net

Connect the color with something meaningful. "Goldfish snacks are orange. The ball in the therapy room is blue." Food is especially good because it pulls in the sense of taste...."lemons are yellow, orange juice is orange."

Here's an example of an approach I used in therapy:

The student sits on the red therapy ball and tosses several red balls into a red bucket as I sing or play the "red song". Then we move to a table and the child colors a picture of a red firetruck  using the red scented marker while the "red song" is playing in the background.

Eventually, the pairing should not be necessary, but initially the goal is to help the student associate the smells, songs, etc. with the particular colors. At some point, when the child sees the color green, the song & smell for green should come to mind and this will help them remember "that's the color green." 

 

Multi-Sensory Instruction for Handwriting: Stencils and Raised Letter Cards

Here is a simple way to make letter stencils and raised letter cards. All you will need are several sheets of craft foam, available at craft stores or on Amazon, a pair of scissors and card stock paper (old file folders also work well). Choose the letters for the stencils. A student that I have been working with is learning the capital letters L and F, so I made stencils/raised letter cards for those letters. 

Write the letter on the foam and cut it out. Take care to keep the letter “cut out” intact. To make your raised letter cards, just glue the “cut out” to a rectangular piece of card stock. (I like to laminate the card stock first). 

 First, have the child trace the raised letter card with their index finger. While tracing, pair the motion with verbal cues for forming the letter. The “Handwriting Without Tears” language is good. For example, for an F, say “long line down, top across, middle across.”

After several tracing trials, have the student write the letter using the stencil while verbally repeating “long line down, top across, middle across.” For tracing, the child can use a marker, crayon, or even a “squiggle” pen. You want it to be fun! 

 Finally, have the student write the letter without the stencil using the verbal prompts. Gradually fade your verbal prompting.

The great thing about these materials is that you can use them over and over again!

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Live Your Most Authentic Life

How many hats do you wear in an average day? The list is probably quite long... mom, wife, chef, employee, chauffer, housekeeper, friend, caregiver, and many more!

You dedicate countless hours to your many responsibilities, why not set aside some time for yourself? You can do this by signing up for my new self improvement course, Living Your Most Authentic Life. For more information about the course, click HERE.

As soon as you sign up for the course (you choose how much you want to pay), your first lesson will be available. The remaining lessons will be emailed to you weekly. Don't miss out on this opportunity for self-improvement!

Here are several of the topics that are covered:

The Path to Self-Discovery

Understanding and Dealing with Discontent

How to Live Passionately and Discover Your Soul's True Joy

 Click HERE to sign up!

Cutting on the Lines: Teaching Tips

It can be a challenge to teach a a child to cut on the lines, especially if the child has motor skill or perceptual problems. Here is another approach that I frequently use when working on scissor skills and teaching students how to cut on the lines.

When working on scissor skills, always start with card stock paper. It is much easier to handle and the child will get more sensory feedback while cutting than with regular paper. Make the cutting lines bold and dark, then outline the cutting lines with neon "puff paint." You can find this at craft stores or on Amazon. When the puff paint hardens, it is difficult to cut across with scissors! This provides a tactile "clue" when the child veers off of the line. How closely you put the puff paint to the cutting line depends on how skilled the child is with cutting. If a child is just learning to cut on the lines, leave 1/4 to 1/2-inch of space between the puff paint and cutting line, and narrow the space as the child learns to cut with more accuracy.

Tell the child to "touch the black line with your scissors" and remind her to keep both "thumbs up" while cutting.
If you don't have any puff paint, you can also cut sticky back craft foam to the appropriate size/form and stick it on either side of the cutting line. 

Great cutting!

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Tummy Time Tips to the Rescue!

As a parent, do you dread tummy time? Does your baby cry every time you position her on her belly? Thankfully, with time and a few simple techniques, any infant can learn to tolerate tummy time. I have a website that shares a number of tips on how to introduce tummy time and increase an infant's tolerance without making parents' and baby's life miserable.

Tummy time that is provided on a daily basis leads to the mastery of important motor milestones, such as rolling over, pulling up, and crawling. Also, infants who aren't exposed to tummy time are at risk for motor skill delays and developing flat spots on the head.

For additional fun tummy time activities, you can purchase my parenting book, "Retro Baby," on Amazon!!

Also, for more information about tummy time as well as some wonderful brochures and handouts, visit http://www.pathwaysawareness.org/.


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Plagiocephaly & Torticollis Awareness Day: Please Help by Signing This Petition

Click HERE to sign the petition!

 

Are you familiar with plagiocephaly and torticollis? The number of infants diagnosed with flat spots on the head (plagiocephaly) and tight neck muscles (torticollis) have been on the rise in America. Recent studies cite incidence rates of plagiocephaly as high as 48%, and one study cites a six-fold increase in rates of incidence, increasing from 1 in 300 infants to 1 in 60.

These conditions are serious, and we need to bring attention to them with a PLAGIOCEPHALY & TORTICOLLIS AWARENESS DAY in order for parents to recognize the signs early and get their children the help that they need early on.

Here is a testimonial from a mom who has dealt with these conditions first hand:

Both of our sons developed plagiocephaly after birth. With our first, I noticed that he tended to always look to one side right from birth, but even though I'm a physical therapist myself, it never occurred to me that he might have torticollis (tight muscles in the neck) or develop a flat spot– I was so worried about breast feeding, lack of sleep, and everything else that comes along with a newborn that I just wasn't looking at my baby through PT eyes!

When my son was about 10 weeks old, we finally noticed his tendency to look to one side and the flat spot that was developing, so we went to the pediatrician, who told us not to worry about it, and repeatedly telling us "it will round out on its own". I think my husband and I were in denial a little, not wanting to even consider that it might not resolve on its own. So we waited and waited, and didn't pursue further intervention until he was almost 1 year old.

At that time, we went to a local Occupational Therapist who specializes in babies with torticollis. She is a very skilled therapist, as well as a very warm and empathetic person– she is a wonderful clinician. She began educating us on stretching and positioning, and strongly recommended cranial banding due to the assymetry in his face, ears, and jaw. Our son began wearing the helmet shortly after his first birthday (which is very late in terms of effectiveness for cranial banding!), and wore it 23 hrs/day for 3 months. I was SO anxious about the helmet, and remember crying about my poor baby having to wear it… but we had it painted to look like a footbal helmet, and he actually looked really cute in it and it didn't bother him one bit. Most importantly, it worked!

He is now 5 years old and has a perfectly round head with no assymetry. Also, the OT and our pediatrician (who later got on board with treatment) wrote excellent letters to our insurance company, and our cranial band was paid for IN FULL– we were amazed and ecstatic!

Our second son was born about a year after our first came out of his cranial band, and he also had a strong tendency to look towards one side right from birth. The second time around I was definitely watching him through my physical therapist eyes! We noticed the torticollis immediately and brought him to our OT within about 2 months. We started doing weekly OT sessions and home exercises,  as well as using our knowledge about appropriate positioning and use of tummy time, and after a couple months his flat spot had disappeared and he was no longer turning his head in only one direction.

 I feel strongly that if we had not intervened as early as we did with our second son, we would have ended up needing a cranial band for him too, so I'm so happy that we knew better the second time around. I hope this information might be helpful to anyone who is in a similar situation, unsure of whether or not to pursue further intervention. If you notice a flat spot or limited range of motion in the neck at all, I would definitely recommend purusing intervention… cranial banding is non-invasive and very effective, but can be expensive (depending on your insurance) and time-consuming, so all the more reason to pursue early intervention to possibly eliminate the need for a band at all!

How can you can help?

Please sign the Petition now to create an Awareness Day!

Stencils for Prewriting Strokes

Do you have a student or child working on prewriting strokes? I recently started seeing a student for therapy who was already using these stencils, and they are so clever, I had to share them with you!

Basically, all you need are several file folders (colored file folders are nice), a black marker, a laminating machine, and sticky back Velcro (click here to buy on Amazon).

As you can see with these, the student is working on forming a half-circle, a diagonal line, and a half square. First, cut the "pathway" that you need (half-circle, diagonal line, etc.) out of the top side of the file folder. Second, trace the edges of the "pathway" with black marker for a nice visual prompt. Third, laminate the file folder and any loose pieces. Finally, add the Velcro pieces (see below).

 In the photo above, you'll notice the sticky Velcro pieces were added to the bottom and sides of the file folder. The paper should fit inside the file folder, but not cover the Velcro pieces.

Once the file folder is closed, the Velcro pieces should stick together, and the stencil should work like a charm! See the videos above and below. Happy writing!

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