Valentine's Day: Before and After

 

Tiffany's Tips: Computer Use

 

Tiffany's Tips: Bilateral Coordination is a crucial skill

 

Bilateral coordination is a crucial skill that involves the ability to simultaneously coordinate both sides of the body in a controlled and organized manner. It is an essential aspect of human motor development and is seen in many daily activities. This skill is particularly important for school-related tasks such as stabilizing paper with one hand while writing or cutting with the other.

 Individuals who struggle with bilateral coordination may find it difficult to complete self-help activities, such as dressing and tying shoes. They may also face challenges with fine motor activities, such as stringing beads and stacking blocks, and gross motor activities, such as climbing stairs, riding a bike, and playing sports. 

Children who experience difficulties with bilateral coordination may exhibit symptoms such as clumsiness, lack of coordination, and difficulty with tasks that require the use of both hands, such as buttoning clothes or tying shoelaces. These difficulties can be addressed through various occupational therapy interventions, which aim to develop and improve the individual's ability to effectively coordinate both sides of their body.

Therapeutic use of playing the Piano

Playing the piano can offer numerous therapeutic benefits for individuals of all ages. Research has shown that playing the piano can reduce stress and anxiety levels, improve hand-eye coordination, enhance memory and cognitive abilities, and even boost self-confidence and self-esteem. Additionally, playing the piano can provide a creative outlet for individuals to express themselves and their emotions. Overall, the therapeutic benefits of playing the piano make it a worthwhile activity for anyone looking to improve their mental and physical health.

Tiffany's Tips: Therapeutic Use of Ballons

 Ballons are excellent tools for improving sensory-motor & hand-eye, and foot-eye coordination. 

⇨ Air-filled balloons are perfect tools to improve hand-eye coordination. Balloon volleyball and tennis are just a few fun ways to incorporate upper extremities use and eye movement. 

⇨ Putting things such as sand, play-dough, or hair gel into uninflated latex balloons to create a hand fidget.

Tiffany's Tips: Functional Pencil Grip

Does your child hold their pencil when weird pencil grip? They may benefit from using the tripod trainer grip. To...

• Reduce hand fatigue

• Help give more control 

• Encourage tripod pencil grip, the most functional grip for legible handwriting. 

When using pencil grips, have your child start coloring by connecting the dots or mazes activities to get them used to using the grip before handwriting. These will improve your child’s visual motor skills and fine motor skills. When utilizing the pencil grip, you will see your child developing more control of their writing utensil.

 

2024 OT GOALS

 

Tiffany's Tips: Therapeutic use of Play dough

Playing with playdough is an excellent way to improve a child’s fine motor skills... 

⇨ rolling, flattening, squeezing, and pinching help strengthen their fingers
⇨ using hands to flatten playdough and then use a pencil to write letters and numbers in it or scissors to cut it
⇨ molding play dough into different shapes also builds up strength in their hands