Want to connect with other special needs families? Come join the conversation at October 21, 2008
Try This Tuesday #14: Flip Crayons
To encourage a proper grasp while coloring at school, Michael's OT proposed a trial of shorter crayons. When she first brought them in, Michael didn't want to use them, so they made a deal that he could use the regular ones as long as he held them with three fingers.
Within a couple of days, he had voluntarily switched to the shorter ones. He is enjoying coloring a lot more now and even gets upset when the teacher says time is up before he has finished (a topic for another post!).
The ones he is using are flip crayons promote a tripod grasp by virtue of their size. As a plus, they also help develop fine motor coordination as the child flips the crayons around in his or her hand.
There are other types of crayons available for this purpose, such as short chubby ones and triangular ones. You could also just break regular crayons to make them shorter. Although this would fit our budget better, it was not considered acceptable by the child in question!
Please join in and share the creative solutions YOU have found to your own challenges, or feel free to post your own challenge for input from others. For more details on how to participate, click here.
Trish can be found writing here at 5MFSN every Friday in addition to hosting Try This Tuesday. You can also find Trish at her blog, Another Piece of the Puzzle.
Filed under Stuff We Love, Trish, Try This Tuesday by
Comments on Try This Tuesday #14: Flip Crayons »
Maddy @ 12:14 am
We started with the ancient equivalent of chubby markers, but we had other issues to deal with as well.
They've come a long way now and will hold pencils of one kind and another, but now we need to work on the'correct' manner or grip. There are lots of different types that fit over the pencil to help aid this process. [they're all darned expensive, very little and easily lost!]
Cheers
Amazing_Grace @ 10:20 am
File To Give Teachers Before AS Training
I have in my son's IEP that a training session is to be conducted before school starts including all teachers, aides, counselors, administrators, bus drivers, etc., who will have contact with him.
I give each person a file (one of those folders with brass fasteners that hold papers inside) that I have done and I go over it during the meeting. In the file is the following:
Frogs Mom @ 11:40 am
What cool crayons! Frog is still very resistant to coloring. We've tried a lot of different shapes of crayons, but we haven't tries short – hum, I think I know what we will be doing today ;0) Thanks for the idea!
Tammy and Parker @ 4:19 pm
Those are great crayons. We are still working on getting Parker to develop a desire to color.
Trish @ 9:49 am
Maddy – yes, I am hoping the school will test out the different grips before we need to start buying them ourselves!
Amazing Grace – thank you for another awesome list. I am learning so much from you about being a good advocate.
Frogs Mom – Hope he likes the short ones!
Tammy – I didn't think he would ever want to color, either, but it finally kicked in once he felt that he had a little bit of control over where the crayon would go. Hang in there.
Danette @ 2:20 pm
Where did you find those? We got some triangular-shaped crayons once but Bitty wouldn't use them. What's odd is that when he was a little over a year, I remember him using a tripod grasp naturally. I remember it because I was stunned, my twins were still working on it, with considerable time and effort spent in OT and at school to learn, and here he did it naturally? After he regressed, sure enough he lost his tripod grip too and has had to relearn it. It's a challenge b/c he has very little attention span for coloring, it's just not his thing. Unless walls or furniture are involved, then he's all for it, lol. Yes, we are some of those mean parents that encourage the use of paper over furniture (haha). I'll have to look for some of those short crayons.
Another Piece of the Puzzle ยป Try This Tuesdays: October @ 1:06 am
[...] TTT#14: Flip Crayons [...]