Playdough with Accessories   

Description of item: Either store bought or made at home (see recipe below)

Why it’s recommended:

Playdough is a great, non-threatening activity for children with fine motor difficulties. Although Play dough can be used as a hand warm-up tool at times, it is also a great therapeutic tool in itself. It can be used to assist with hand strength, in-hand manipulation and coordination. Starting off by squeezing and squishing the dough for strength and moving onto rolling or pinching the dough will give your child a sense of success (as squeezing and general playing with the dough is much easier than coordinating both hands at the same time to create something!).

Play dough tools are a great addition to playing with playdough on its own. Tools such as cutters and pressers (cookie cutters and shapes) are wonderful for hand strength and often require both hands to work at the same time (bilateral coordination). Tools also incorporate challenges and problem-solving aspects to the activity, for example when using a play dough scissors, the play dough may need to be rolled out more for the scissors to cut through it properly.

Play is a great way for children seeking tactile input who touch everything in sight, find different textures and materials to rub, and excessively touch people’s faces or clothes. These children may be unable to get enough “messy play”, therefore, playdough is brilliant to incorporate in their daily playing. Adding beads/pasta shells/marbles to the playdough can add extra textures.

It can also be used as a tool to build self-esteem.  Children love to create pretend food, build ‘snowmen’, create animals, and use the accessories to make imaginative sculptures. There are no rules or correct way to use play dough, therefore children can take pride in what they can make on their own. 

Lava Lamp

Description: A great addition to any room, lava lamps have coloured wax which heats up and moves around to create different shapes.

Why it’s recommended:

Lava lamps come in many shapes and sizes, colours and designs and are a great gift for any age group from 5 years onwards. For children who seek visual sensory input, or even for those who are overly stimulated by stimuli in their environment, lava lamps have a natural calming effect when in an environment. When a child feels fearful, overly excited, agitated, restless, hyperactive, controlling or moody, this simple calming visual input can act to reduce their level of arousal/alertness. Lava lamps are also great for children who have difficulty settling down for sleep and regulating sleep/wake cycles, and for those who have a fear of the dark.

Balance bike

Description: Balance bikes, also known as runner bikes, training bikes or walker bikes, are bikes which don’t have pedals.

Why it’s recommended:

These bikes will help your child develop an early sense of balance and control, along with independence, self-confidence and happiness. The bikes offer your child just enough stability and at the same time instability that will teach them to learn balance. This builds confidence and eliminates fear by allowing the child to have their feet on the ground and progress at their own pace. Although a lot of these bikes are smaller and aimed at children aged 2-4 years old, there are bigger models available for children up to 10 years old. These are perfect for children with gross motor difficulties, and difficulties with balance and bilateral coordination.

Learn to dress doll

Description:  Many different models/dolls are available. Can be used to practice zips, snap buttons, laces, buttons, and buckles.

Why it’s recommended:

Dressing dolls is an effective way for toddlers to develop the manual dexterity they need to dress themselves. Not only are they developing the motor skills to get dressed, they are learning the process of how to dress themselves, the names of clothing and clothing parts. Dolls with additional clothing to put on or off can be beneficial as the child practices pulling clothes over the doll’s head and arms, and in turn, learns how to perform these same actions on their own body. Dolls are available with boy’s or girl’s clothing and children can also learn how to dress appropriately for different weather (a must for living in Ireland!).

Cra-Z-knit design set

Description of item: This set includes a knitting loom to knit yourself some personal items or presents such as a scarf, hat or anything else you wish. Using the loom makes it a lot easier to make cool designs and it comes with two looms and sparkly yarn.

Why it’s recommended:

With this year’s obsession with loom bands, this knitting loom is a great way to encourage your child to continue their creative streak. Working with the loom requires fine motor skills, organization and planning. It also requires your child to follow directions and problem-solve while using the loom. With this gift, your child will have an end product to work towards, encouraging them to continue and concentrate on the activity for longer and also brings their creative side out, making something personal and suited to them. The age recommendation for this set is 6 years and up.

Post by: Maeve O’Sullivan, Occupational Therapist

However, children/adolescents with dyspraxia tend to face other problems that do not seem to be specifically motor-based. Here are some examples:

Organisation: Planning and carrying out a task is actually a complex process. We need to decide what we want to do, what tools/materials we need to do it, and how we are going to do it (what movements are involved, how many steps, in which order and so on). While we can understand that people with dyspraxia have difficulty with carrying out the motor movements of each task, this doesn’t really explain why they don’t seem to be very good at organising themselves. Have you ever watched a teenager with dyspraxia try to cook a simple meal? Why does the kitchen look like it was hit with a bomb afterwards? Did they have to use every pot, dish and cooking spoon? Why is every surface covered in onion peels? Often, they may start the cooking and only realise halfway through that they don’t actually have any tomatoes or some other necessary ingredient. These are examples of the challenges in organisation faced by people with dyspraxia. Younger children tend to have difficulty figuring out how to tidy their bedrooms (everything lands in one box), organising their schoolbag (how did all those books get so dog-eared?) or setting the table (how many knives and forks do we need, where’s the salt?). Older children appear to have more difficulty organising themselves, although I believe this is because of the greater demands on older children. Older children are expected to remember their chores without being reminded, keep their room tidy, remember which books go to school or back home, what was for homework, where they left their pens or pencils, and of course, to manage their pocket money without losing it or spending it all on the first day. Never mind looking after their mobile phone and house-keys! It all seems a bit too much!

Managing time: Ever noticed that the teenager with dyspraxia is always the last one out the door, late for class, last one finishing an exam? There appear to be two reasons for this: one, because of the motor deficits faced by children with dyspraxia, they take longer to do tasks that appear simple to others, and secondly, because they are notoriously disorganised, they end up spending more time trying to find things or may not even be aware that it’s nearly time to go. And can you imagine trying to figure out when you have to start getting ready if you want to leave at half past…?

Mixing with peers: Although there doesn’t seem to be any reason why, several research studies have highlighted that children and adolescents don’t mix as well with their peers as might be expected. Some studies have looked at whether people with dyspraxia have difficulty reading facial expressions, and while this may be a problem, it is unlikely to be the full picture. Another theory is the link between sensory processing disorders and dyspraxia. Following this though, people with dyspraxia may find situations with a lot of sensory input (such as groups of people, or “fun” environments like fairs, nightclubs etc) overwhelming. Also, people with sensory processing often have difficulty controlling their emotional responses to situations and keeping their “alertness” levels at a “just right” level. This means that people with dyspraxia may react differently in social situations than other people. Another possibility is that, due to difficulties with typical childhood activities such as riding a bicycle or playing sport, people with dyspraxia have a history of being or choosing to be excluded from social situations which may reduce their practice at social skills.

Sleeping: While sleeping doesn’t seem to have any direct link to motor skills, a high number of people with dyspraxia have difficulty with sleeping. Often, this is difficulty falling asleep, but at times they may have difficulty sleeping through the night or may be “groggy” in the mornings and take longer than expected to get going in the mornings. This is most likely due to the link of sensory processing disorders with dyspraxia. As mentioned above, people with sensory processing disorders often have difficulties regulating their level of “alertness” and this means that they are likely to struggle getting their bodies in to the right state for sleeping or waking up.

Dealing with emotions: The world of the dyspraxic person is fraught with challenges that bring with them their own emotional upheaval. Facing failure at many tasks can seriously damage a person’s self-esteem unless they have had the opportunity of experiencing success in other areas. Also, high levels of frustration are associated with not managing tasks as expected and especially if others expect the same. The hidden nature of dyspraxia often makes this the case. Also, typical stress-buffering strategies such as social support are often less available due to their difficulties making and keeping friends.

In conclusion, although people with dyspraxia do present with motor skills, but also have a variety of other challenges that they face on a day-to-day basis. For all those working with youngsters with dyspraxia/DCD, I would highly recommend reading Victoria Biggs’ book: Caged in Chaos. It is ideal for adolescents and those working with adolescents with DCD/dyspraxia.

I don’t know about you, but I remember the ache of writing final exams, those 3 hours of agony, trying to block out the pain of throbbing elbows, pulled up shoulders and aching fingers. It was only later when I realised that this wasn’t normal. While everyone got sore and tired hands, they didn’t feel the extent of pain I felt in exams. Now, as an OT, I am particularly conscious of how children experience the act of handwriting. Typically, handwriting instruction focuses on teaching children the mechanics of forming letters, spacing them correctly, resting them on the line, etc. But little focus is given to handwriting endurance because so little is known about it and awareness is lacking, particularly in those who have never really experienced these challenges.

Handwriting endurance is the ability to maintain handwriting over long periods of time. This time will depend on the age/grade of the child, but young children would only be able to write for 5-10 minutes, while secondary school pupils are expected to write exams of 2-3 hours (and sometimes more). In order to maintain handwriting for this period of time, we need a lot more than just strong fingers. Here’s what goes into the seemingly simple task of handwriting:

Postural Control: We need to be able to hold a stable position in your chair and hold your weight up through your spine (not slumped over leaning your head on your arm/hand.

Muscle Tone: The tension in our muscles not under conscious control is called muscle tone. This prepares us for functioning. If this tone is lower, a child can appear “floppy” and may have poor joint stability (see below). A number of children are born with lower muscle tone and some children don’t get the opportunity to develop their muscle tone in the early years. Muscle tone is probably one of the biggest factors in handwriting endurance. If our tone is low, we need more strength in the muscles to achieve the same thing as another child/adult would. Although there are strategies that can improve muscle tone (see below), these are short-lived and need to be repeated before every handwriting exercise if a child’s tone is lower.

Joint Stability: Stable joints are necessary for effective function. Joints are held in place by ligaments and muscles (via the tendons). Where a child has looser ligaments or lower muscle tone, the child may seem hypermobile, have joints that bend back further than expected and/or complain of pain when writing. These children can sometimes also develop a very tight pencil grasp to compensate for this instability.

Muscle strength: The strength that are in the individual muscles used for handwriting, from the shoulder muscles down to the smaller finger muscles, these are all important. Muscle strength, as in the case with most muscles, can be improved with exercise (see below).

What to do about it?

The old adage “They will get used to it” only applies to typically developing children with no difficulties in joint stability or muscle tone. If your child complains of sore hands, or shows other signs of poor handwriting endurance (e.g. rubbing their hands, elbows or shoulders or shaking the hand or arm out), it is suggested that you follow up with an occupational therapist. In some cases, your child may need some simple remediation, or it is possible that your child needs to use a computer instead of handwriting. But here are some useful strategies you can use in the meantime:

Work on a vertical surface: Working on blackboards or white boards or taping work to windows or walls helps build on shoulder strength and postural control.

Do active games with the shoulders and arms: Play wheelbarrow races, swing a bat or carry in the shopping bags. These activities will also strengthen the shoulders and improve postural control. However, an important word of caution: If your child bends their elbows back (further than a straight line), don’t let your child do any weight-bearing activities on their arms such as wheelbarrows or handstands. These could further stretch and weaken the joints. If your child has noticeable joint hyper-extension in their elbows, you may want to check with your GP, physiotherapist or occupational therapist if this needs further examination.

Do resistive activities with the hands: Finger strength can be built up through art-and-craft type activities that have resistance. For younger children this would include play dough, buttons, baking (especially kneading dough), etc., while older children/teens could use clay, elastics (e.g. loom bands) and baking.

Hand Print Spiders

This craft is a good way to work on tactile (touch) processing, fine motor skills and visual motor integration.

You’ll need:

• Black Tempera or poster paint
• Paper
• Googly eyes

Paint your child’s four fingers and palm black (but NOT the THUMB)… Press the painted hand onto paper pointing fingers out. Paint the other hand and press it in the opposite direction overlapping palm prints. Add wiggly eyes and you have a cute, not so creepy spider.

Pumpkin Treat Bag

This craft is a also a great way to work on tactile (touch) processing, fine motor skills and visual motor integration.

Make these bags at school or home, for children to keep their Halloween party candy.

You’ll need:

• Orange paint
• Green paint
• Lunch paper bag
• Sponge
• Palm of hand, index finger

Apply orange paint to the palm of a hand with a sponge. Press the palm onto the front of the paper bag.

Using the index finger & green paint, make stem and leaves on the pumpkins.

Egg Cartoon Bat

Skills needed: This craft is a good way to work on tactile (touch) processing, fine motor skills and bilateral hand coordination.

You’ll need:

• Egg cartoon
• Red and black marker
• Black paint, glitter, googly eyes (optional)

Separate 3 cups from one side of an egg carton. Cut out part of the bottoms of the 2 outside cups to resemble bat wings.

Add eyes, a mouth, and decorate.

Hang it from a string or a rubber band.