Surf’s up! Kick boards help kids gain core strength

Riding a kick board on your tummy helps develop head and visual control as well as lateral trunk control for better core stability. Children gain in their gross motor skills, stimulate their sensory input and improve overall physical development.

• Place your child on his or her belly with the kick board supporting the trunk from armpit to pelvis. Put one hand on the lower back and one under the kick board if your child needs support. Shift the board side to side and do circles around you.

Sitting on the board can help develop balance and oblique muscles.

•  Place children in sitting facing you as you hold both sides of the board under their bottom. If they do not have enough trunk control to maintain sitting in this position turn them to face away from you. Then bring their trunk and the board against your body and reach around to hold the board between their thighs. Move through the water and tilt the board in all directions to stimulate balance reactions.

Standing on the board is difficult but fun for all and a great way to develop balance and pelvic control.

• Push the board down to a step that your child can stand comfortably on and hold it to the surface with your foot. Holding your child’s hand have them step onto the board on either side of your foot and slowly allow the board to rise or slide off the step. Watch out for the flying board when it pops out from underneath.

KEY words: Core strength, pediatric physical therapy, aquatic therapy, special needs, childhood development, gross motor skills.

All content the property of PEDI Center for Therapy. Improper use may result in legal action.

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Why developmental screening is a priority

Developmental Screening

The importance of developmental screening for your child:

•  Schools assess your child’s learning regularly.

•  Pediatricians assess your child’s health regularly.

•  Shouldn’t developmental specialists in movement, play and language assess your child as well?

The answer, of course, is yes.

The PEDI Center’s mission is to bring understanding and information to all parents on their children’s development including their strengths, their weaknesses and the best approach through play to optimize a child’s potential.

Through yearly screening PEDI Center helps parents with ‘development focus points’ within each discipline – movement, play and language – for the year. Assessments help illuminate problem areas and provide parents with the opportunity to get more comprehensive testing and early intervention if needed. Parents will have a better understanding of early childhood development and in their children specifically.

Parents are provided with a list of activities in each area specifically development for their child.

Yearly screenings help parents understand their child’s level of development.

All content the property of PEDI Center for Therapy. Improper use may result in legal action.

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• Continuity and Discontinuity in Developmental Psychology (psych.answers.com)
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• Finally, A Child Development Guidebook for Parents (atlantablackstar.com)
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Games, books and toys for child development

For busy children who seek a lot of sensory input here are two different games and some book suggestions that will engage them and help with their language, auditory awareness,  social skills and body awareness.

PICNIC (seekers)

Activity for home

Peanut Butter and Jelly (YouTube video)
First you take the peanuts
And you crunch ’em,
You crunch ’em, You crunch ’em
You crunch ’em, You crunch ’em

For your peanut, peanut butter
And jelly
Peanut, peanut butter
And jelly

Then you take the grapes
And you squish ’em,
You squish ’em, You squish ’em,
You squish ’em, You squish ’em

For your peanut, peanut butter
And jelly
Peanut, peanut butter
And jelly

Then you take the bread
And you spread it,
You spread it, You spread it
You spread it, You spread it

For your peanut, peanut butter
And jelly
Peanut, peanut butter
And jelly

Then you take your sandwich
And you eat it,
You eat it, You eat it,
You eat it, You eat it

Hopscotch Squared

Taking chalk, draw a large box 2 feet by 2 feet. Then divide the square into four equal boxes. Help your child draw letters, numbers or four pictures one in each box. Then, making sure that the toys face you, call out the picture and have them jump to it making sure to jump forward, backward, to the right and two the left. Then they call out the boxes as you jump.

Books:   

  

Bernstain Bear’s Honey Hunt (Stanley and Janice Berenstain)      Crunching Munching Caterpillar (Cain)

Toys:

               

Bug Catcher Magnet Puzzle

Cuttable Plastic Play Food

Therapeutic benefits: These two games, books and toys and activity suggestions help to address the following developmental goals:

1. Develop receptive and expressive language skills by labeling objects and actions.

2. Develop joint attention, auditory awareness, and social skills through simple commands and turn taking.

3. Develop body awareness through joint compression.

4. Develop bilateral coordination skills when crossing midline (3 to 4 year old skill).

5. Develop fine motor control and pencil grip development with drawing.

6. Develop gross motor control through targeted plyometrics.

All content the property of PEDI Center for Therapy. Improper use may result in legal action

Animal cookie activity for proprioception

Animal Cookie

(Sensory Integration Activity for Proprioception)

1)     Roll Out the Dough  – Have child lay on the floor and take any house pillow and roll it over his/her  body providing firm, deep pressure.

2)     Brush on the Flavor – Using a soft brush, like a baby brush or a sensory brush provided by your occupational therapist, brush on “the chocolate or strawberry etc.” Brush each limb from trunk out to fingers or toes for twenty seconds. Do not brush belly, back or face and avoid brush strokes from periphery inward.

3)     Stick on the Arms and Legs – Keeping the knee extended, apply joint approximating pressure through heel toward hip 10 times on leg. Repeat with arms, elbows and wrist extended and pressure through the palm to the shoulder.

4)     Cook in the Oven – Cover the child completely with a heavy blanket including head and count down from 20. Pull off blanket and reveal cookie.

5)     Pull Cookie Off the Sheet – Have them stretch up high to the ceiling then touch their toes and repeat 5 times. “Lift up to the sky to un-stick your heels and then reach down to un-stick your toes.”

6)     Run, Run as Fast as You Can  – Ask them what animal cookie have they have become and then walk like that animal singing

“Creep, Creep, Really Slow, Slow As A (Name of animal) You Will Go,

Run, Run Just As Fast As You Can You Can’t Catch Me I’m The Cookie Man”

Therapeutic benefits: This fun activity helps with sensory integration and focuses on proprioception – the sense that helps know where our bodies are in relation to different body parts.

All content the property of PEDI Center for Therapy. Improper use may result in legal action

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5 tried and true toys for development, therapy

As children start playing with their favorite new toys from the holidays, here are some traditional toys that can help them with learning and exploring their world in developmental and therapeutic ways.

Playskool’s Mr. Potato Head

He’s celebrating his 60th anniversary this year and it’s easy to see why this toy has lasted so long: It’s fun and it teaches so much. Therapeutic benefits: Children use fine-motor skills to place the parts into the potato. They learn where their body parts are: head, nose, ears, mouth, hands, arms, etc. Children can practice identifying and naming the parts, which addresses language and cognitive development. Pretty good benefits for a toy that still costs less than $10.

Play-Doh 

Play-Doh has been around since 1955 when it was first tested in select schools and kindergartens before being sold retail the following year. According to Hasbro, its current owners, the modeling dough was invented by two brothers to use to clean wall paper.  To date, over seven hundred million pounds of Play-Doh have been sold. There is even an annual day of celebration: National Play-Doh Day is Sept. 18. Therapeutic benefits: Play-Doh helps children build hand muscles as they play the clay, improving fine-motor skills. Children can also name colors and creatures they create. For children with sensory needs, kneading the dough helps them build tolerance to different textures. Hide a toy in the dough for an extra surprise. For older children, make your own dough using a variety of recipes such as this one from familyeducation.com.

Bean bags (easy to make yourself)

Several companies make bean bags and bean bag games, so we won’t list them all. Bean bags also are very easy to make yourself. Just sew together two pieces of material, leave an opening to add the beans, then stitch closed. Use different types of material such as corduroy, velvet, etc., to create textured bean bags. Set out a couple of buckets or cardboard boxes and you’re ready to play. Therapeutic benefits: Motor planning with the action of tossing and aiming the bag, motor coordination and motor strengthening. For sensory children, the feel of the beans in the bag and of the material help them experience new textures.

Puzzles

Whether a child is holding onto a big knob to place 2-3 pieces into a wooden slot, or building complex puzzles with hundreds of pieces, completing puzzles offers many benefits for all ages. According to about.com, Englishman John Spilsbury invented the jigsaw puzzle in 1767 creating a map of the world using a map placed on wood. He then cut out the countries. Teachers used Spilsbury’s puzzles to teach geography. Hundreds of years later, children are still learning by matching pictures and shapes in puzzles. Therapeutic benefits: problem-solving skills and fine-motor development.

Sensory-related toys

No list of toys is complete these days without toys that add sensory experiences to learning. There are a variety of these available with prices varying from inexpensive to very costly for certain therapeutic items. The following are less expensive and all are available at PEDI Center for Therapy using your health-care or flexible spending dollars: Jigglers, spiky balls and squeeshie toys, plus many more.

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Fire truck at-home activity for children

by PEDI Center for Therapy

(Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 9:16pm)

First Connections/JRI

Hurry, Hurry, Drive the Fire Truck

Hurry, hurry, drive the fire truck

(Hands on steering wheel)

Hurry, hurry, drive the fire truck

Hurry, hurry, drive the fire truck

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

(Ring bell)

Hurry, hurry, climb the ladder

(Pretend to climb ladder)

Hurry, hurry, climb the ladder

Hurry, hurry, climb the ladder

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

(Ring bell)

Hurry, hurry, squirt the water

(Pretend to spray hose)

Hurry, hurry, squirt the water

Hurry, hurry, squirt the water

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

(Ring bell)

Phew, the fire’s out. Back to the station. I am tired

(snore, ring bell and repeat)