Functional Fine Motor Activities for Kids Using Household Items

Functional Fine Motor Activities for Kids Using Household Items

Functional fine motor activities for kids are so important to childhood development.  They are the building blocks for higher level skills such as using scissors, drawing, dressing, eating, handwriting and more!  Children need to experience frequent practice with fine motor activities to refine the movements in the fingers and hands before ever picking up a pencil.  Of course, there are plenty of toys to practice fine motor skill development but you can also infuse the entire day with functional fine motor tasks.  Here are 10 functional fine motor activities for kids using items from around the house:

1. Pick up small pieces of food such as Cheerios, raisins, etc. using thumb and index finger.
2. Open and close twist ties on bread and bakery bags.
3. When eating breakfast foods such as a bagel, muffin or roll, pull off small pieces using thumb, index and middle fingertips.
4. Practice screwing toothpaste cap on and off.
5. Place lunch money (in coins) on the table and have the child pick coins up, using the thumb, index and middle fingers, without sliding money to the edge of the table.  Or have the child put the coins into a bank.
6. Place lunch money in a plastic bag with slide zip top and have child seal the bag.
7. Practice opening all lids (if the child has difficulty opening lid independently start opening it and then have child finish opening it).
8. Table washing: using a spray bottle with water in it, squeeze the trigger with index and middle fingers while ring and pinky finger hold the bottle neck then wipe off with a towel.
9. When reading, use one hand to hold the book and the other hand to turn the pages.
10. Help with food preparation such as crush garlic in a garlic press, using thumb and index finger snap ends off green beans, rip lettuce up for salad, dry lettuce off in a salad spinner, use tongs to dish out salad, rolls or ice cubes and push toothpicks into snacks holding with thumb and index finger.

All of these activities and more suggestions like these are listed in Therapeutic Activities for Home and School.  This book provides pediatric therapists with over forty, uncomplicated, reproducible activity sheets and tips that can be given to parents and teachers. Each activity sheet is written in a simple format with no medical terminology. The therapist is able to simply mark the recommended activities for each child. By providing parents and teachers with these handy checklists, therapists will be encouraging therapeutic activities throughout the entire day rather than time set aside for traditional home exercise programs. This book is an essential tool for all school based therapists to facilitate carry over of therapeutic activities in the home and classroom.  FIND OUT MORE INFORMATION.

 

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Manual Motor Skills, Daily Living Skills and Autism

Developmental Science published research examining the longitudinal development of manual motor skills and daily living skills in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).  Longitudinal grip strength and finger tapping, along with the relationship to current and future daily living skills, was evaluated in 90 individuals with ASD and 56 individuals with typical development who ranged in age from 5 to 40 years old.

The results indicated the following:

• the participants with ASD exhibited atypical motor development, characterized by similar performance during childhood but increasingly poorer performance from adolescence into adulthood.
• grip strength was correlated with current adaptive daily living skills.
• Time 1 grip strength predicted daily living skills eight years into the future.

The researchers concluded that individuals with ASD may experience increasingly more pronounced motor difficulties from adolescence into adulthood and that manual motor performance in ASD is related to adaptive daily living skills.

Reference:  Travers, B. G., Bigler, E. D., Duffield, T. C., Prigge, M. D., Froehlich, A. L., Lange, N., … & Lainhart, J. E. (2016). Longitudinal development of manual motor ability in autism spectrum disorder from childhood to mid‐adulthood relates to adaptive daily living skills. Developmental science.

Life Skills Checklists  help track progress towards routine life skills needed to succeed in the school, home and community.  The checklists have been created in Microsoft Excel.  When you record a score for each life skill, it automatically enters into the graph for a visual representation of progress.  If you are using the document in PDF format you will have to hand write in the score and the graphing information.  This is a great resource for tracking quarterly progress and establishing goals.  

The 14 life skills checklists include:

1. Dressing Skills
2. Personal Hygiene
3. Mealtime
4. Food Preparation
5. Chores
6. Safety Skills
7. School Routine
8. Before and After School Routine
9. Personal Health
10. Interpersonal
11. Transportation
12. Self Advocacy
13. Community Life Skills
14. Pre-Vocational

FIND OUT MORE INFORMATION.

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Clothing Fasteners and Gross Motor Skill Development

GROSS MOTOR SKILLS AND CLOTHING FASTENERS

Buttons, zippers, snaps and buckles are all clothing fasteners that require finger dexterity and fine motor skills to open and close.  Did you know that they also require gross motor skills?  In order to be able to open and close traditional clothing fasteners one must have proper stability, postural control, balance and bilateral coordination.

The proximal muscles of the shoulder girdle and trunk function as a stabilizer when fastening clothing.  Efficient control of the larger muscle groups in the neck, shoulder and trunk is necessary to maintain stability in order to place the fingers and hands in the proper position to button/unbutton, zip/unzip, snap and buckle.

When children are using clothing fasteners, they require distal control of the hands and fingers while the body must remain balanced.  The head moves to visual track the skill (flexion and perhaps rotation) possibly eliciting an equilibrium reaction in the body to maintain an upright posture.  Children must have intact equilibrium reactions and sufficient balance in sitting and standing to fasten the clothing.

Bilateral coordination skills are a necessary skill for independence with clothing fasteners.  Higher level bilateral coordination skills are needed since the opposite hands and arms are doing slightly different motions with different timing while fastening clothing.  Unzipping or unbuttoning requires less bilateral coordination skills than zipping and buttoning.  For example with zipping both sides of the body are doing different motions at the same time.  In order to zip one must: use one hand to hold the bottom of zipper track, use the other hand to hold the zipper pull,  inserts track into zipper pull, pull down the track to lock into place and finally use one hand to pull side of jacket down while other hand pulls zipper tab up to zip.  Buttoning also requires a sufficient amount of bilateral coordination skills to complete the task.  For example when buttoning on the right side of the shirt you must: hold button with right hand, hold edge of buttonhole with left hand turning underside of buttonhole, right hand pushes button through hole until it hits left thumb and the left hand pulls button through hole while right hand pulls hole over button.

Eye hand coordination skills are essential to use clothing fasteners as well.  Children need to be able to utilize visual input to help to control the hands to complete the skills independently.

GROSS MOTOR SKILL ACTIVITIES TO HELP CHILDREN TO BE INDEPENDENT WITH CLOTHING FASTENERS

Gross motor activities that will improve postural control, muscle strength in the proximal muscles, bilateral coordination and eye hand coordination may help children develop the underlying skills to achieve independence with clothing fasteners.  Here are some suggested activities:

1. Hanging and climbing activities – Practice monkey bars, chins ups, pull ups or swing from the tree limbs to increase the muscle strength in the shoulder girdle muscles and hands.  Climb the ladders and ropes on the playground to increase the muscle strength in the shoulder girdle muscles, to improve eye hand coordination skills and to improve bilateral coordination skills.
2. Pushing and pulling activities – pull a heavy wagon or push a child on a swing.  These pushing and pulling motions help the shoulder learn to coactivate to produce the right amount of force and stability when using clothing fasteners.  Push too hard and you will not be able to engage a zipper or fasten a button.  Pull too hard and the button will be trapped inside the opening.
3. Weight bearing activities through the arms – animal walks, wheelbarrow walking, crawling, and push ups/planks all help to increase muscle strength and improve coactivation of the shoulder and postural muscles.
4. Yoga Poses – provide muscle strengthening and postural control.
5. Bilateral coordination activities where one hand is stabilizing while the other hand is moving – activities such as using a fishing rod, using a hand mixer, stirring ingredient in a recipe, hammering a golf tee into Styrofoam, etc.
6. Overall symmetrical bilateral coordination activities (both sides of the body are doing the same thing as the same time) such as jumping jacks, jumping rope, dribbling a ball with both hands at the same time, etc.
7. Overall asymmetrical bilateral coordination activities (both sides of the body are doing different things at the same time) such as cross crawls, windmills and hand clapping games.
8. Games or activities that require the forearm to be in a neutral position such as tennis, badminton, zoom ball, throwing/passing a large ball with two hands overhead or opening/closing an expandable ball.
9. Isometric exercises – activities such as Tai Chi and Karate require one to contract and stabilize muscles while the extremities perform various motions.  Try this Ninja Clothes Pin activity to practice postural control, isometric exercises and fine motor skills.
10. Balance activities – Perform activities that challenge balance and eye hand coordination skills at the same time.  Can you sit on an exercise ball and play catch?  Can you stand on a balance beam and play catch?  Try catching smaller and smaller balls.

5 MODIFICATIONS TO HELP WITH GROSS MOTOR SKILLS AND CLOTHING FASTENERS

If a child is unable to independently fasten or unfasten his/her clothing these modifications may be helpful:

1. Provide a stable base of support while they are fastening the clothing.  For example, sit on a bench with feet firmly on the ground or sit on the floor in the corner of the room with back support.
2. Provide verbal cues as necessary. Try to use the wording on each step by step direction for consistency. As the child becomes more independent, reduce the verbal cues until they can be discontinued completely.
3. Avoid certain fasteners – if a child does not have the strength in the shoulders or hands to snap try modifying the clothing with velcro or elastic.
4. Use backward chaining in a child is having trouble with motor planning to complete all the steps to zip, button or snap.  Backward chaining means that an adult provides assistance throughout several steps until the child can complete the last steps independently.
5. Practice the skill in an isolated setting when not rushed.  Once the child can complete the fastening tasks independently, practice the skills in different environments (i.e. bathroom versus bedroom) or with different types of clothing (i.e. tighter fitting versus looser fitting).

Need to measure progress of a child’s ability to button or zip?  Check out the Dressing Skills Rubrics packet.

This post is part of the Functional Skills for Kids: 12 Month series by Occupational and Physical Therapists. You can read all of the functions on childhood HERE. Read all of my monthly posts in this series HERE.

Looking for more information about the development of the functional skills of scissor use in childhood? Stop by to see what the other occupational therapists and physical therapists in the Functional Skills for Kids series have written.

When Can Kids Learn to Button and Zip? | Mama OT

Clothing Fasteners and Fine Motor Skill Development | Kids Play Space

Clothing Fasteners and Gross Motor Skill Development | Your Therapy Source Inc

How to Adapt Buttoning and Zipping for Your Child   | Miss Jaime OT

Learning How To Use Buttons, Snaps, Zippers, and Buckles Through Play | Growing Hands-On Kids

Tips to Teach Kids to Zip and Button | The Inspired Treehouse

Pinch. Poke. Snap… Helping Kids to Manage Buttons, Zips and More!  | Your Kids OT

Clothing Fasteners and Sensory Processing| Sugar Aunts

The Visual Motor Aspect of Buttons and Zippers  | Therapy Fun Zone

The post Clothing Fasteners and Gross Motor Skill Development appeared first on Your Therapy Source.

Postural Control, Gross Motor Development and Mealtime

When you think of children and mealtime, the first things that come to mind may be related to the hand and mouth – ie the ability to use a spoon or fork, bringing food to mouth and getting food inside the mouth.  What you may not realize is that the child’s postural control and gross motor skills greatly influence the ability to function independently during mealtime.  The hips affect the lips!

GROSS MOTOR SKILL DEVELOPMENT AND MEALTIME

Alignment of the mouth and jaw for feeding is interconnected to head and trunk stability.  As babies develop their gross motor skills, they become developmentally ready to try solid foods.  This is usually around 6 months of age when the baby is able to: sit with support in an upright position (either on the lap or in a suitable high chair), roll over, rotate trunk and head voluntarily and bring hands and toys to mouth for exploration.

As children begin to increase their mobility, they learn to position themselves independently during mealtimes in a variety of settings including on the floor, small tables and chairs or at the dining room table.  At around 17-19 months, children can back into a small chair or slide sideways onto the chair to sit to eat at a small table.  Around 18-21 months, children can climb forward onto an adult chair, turn around and sit.  At around 37 – 46 months, children eat most foods without significant mess.  Regardless of where they are seated, children need to have the postural control to remain upright and stable while eating not only to control oral motor skills but to prevent choking.

POSTURAL CONTROL AND MEALTIME

In order to achieve proper alignment of the head during mealtimes, the baby or child needs to be stable at the pelvis, trunk and head.  Children with neurotypical development may be able to compensate with regards to oral motor skills if there is misalignment in the trunk.  Children with disabilities, may exhibit significant difficulties with oral motor skills if there is a lack of postural control.

Starting at the pelvis, the hips should be stable, symmetrical and around a 90 degree angle.  This stable pelvis will allow the child to maintain a more upright posture.  Foot support can help to increase pelvic stability, therefore in the older child, the feet should be positioned on the floor or a foot stool.  The sitting posture should be approximately 90 degrees at the hips, 90 degrees at the knees and ankles.

The trunk should also be symmetrical allowing the child to sit up straight during mealtime.  For children with significant disabilities, adaptive seating may be necessary to achieve a stable pelvis and trunk.

Having a stable pelvis and trunk allows for proper head position for mealtime.  Research indicates that a child’s head position influences the swallow during feeding and reduces the risk of aspiration.  The recommended head posture for safe swallow is a “chin tuck.” The head is positioned upright, in midline, with slight neck flexion, so that the chin is directed slightly downward and inward.  For children with significant physical disabilities, a caregiver may have to facilitate the position for safe swallowing.

GROSS MOTOR ACTIVITIES TO HELP WITH POSTURAL CONTROL FOR MEALTIME

Here are 5 gross motor activities to work on improving postural control to encourage pelvis, trunk and head stability for mealtime-

1. Play in prone.  Play any games while lying on your stomach, hands under shoulders, propped up on your elbows.  This position helps to facilitate postural control and a chin tuck especially if game pieces, books, puzzles, etc are placed on the floor.
2. Small weight shifts while sitting on an exercise ball.  When you move back and forth or side to side on a therapy ball, very slowly and in control you are activating your pelvic and trunk muscles to keep your body stable.
3. Animal walks or yoga poses.  Try different animal walks or yoga poses that require activation of the trunk and hip muscles.  For example, cat/camel pose, crab walking, bear walking, etc.
4.  Swinging.  Maintaining your balance while pumping a swing requires a significant amount of postural control.  Challenge the child’s postural responses by occasionally stopping and starting the swing.  The child will have to activate their postural muscles to maintain upright.
5. Add kneeling, squatting or sit to stand transfers to any activity.  When you perform those actions you activate the hip and trunk muscles. Position toys so a child has to squat down to pick something up.  Put toys a low table or bench and the child can kneel to play.  Use vertical surfaces (ie whiteboard on a wall, magnetic wall, etc) so child has to sit to stand to complete the activity. Play Strong includes 40+ playful activities that encourage muscle strengthening in children.

This post is part of the Functional Skills for Kids series is on mealtime. This series is a 12-month long series written by occupational and physical therapy bloggers on the development of 12 functional skills for children. Stop by to see what the other occupational therapists and physical therapists in the Functional Skills for Kids series have written on mealtime.

When Can Kids Feed Themselves? (and other mealtime milestones) | Mama OT

Fine Motor Skills For Mealtimes  | Therapy Fun Zone

Postural Control, Gross Motor Development and Mealtime  |Your Therapy Source

Attention, Behavior, and Meal Time Problems | Sugar Aunts

4 Ways to Modify Meal Times for Fussy Eaters  | Your Kids OT

Mealtime Skills, Rituals & Play – Nurturing a Love for Food | Kids Play Space

15 Tips for Picky Eaters | The Inspired Treehouse

Positioning, Motor Skills, and Table Manners: What the Connection? | Miss Jaime OT

Visual Perceptual Skills Needed for Independent Feeding | Growing Hands-On Kids

References:

Furano et al and Parks, S (2014). HELP® Checklist 0-3 Birth to Three Years. VORT Corporation.

Redstone, F., & West, J. F. (2004). The importance of postural control for feeding. Pediatric nursing, 30(2), 97.

Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne. Physical, Sensory and Oral Motor Development. Retrieved from the web on 10/25/16 at http://ift.tt/2eL4qs8.

Teaford, P et al (2010). HELP® Checklist 3-6 Checklist. VORT Corporation.

 

The post Postural Control, Gross Motor Development and Mealtime appeared first on Your Therapy Source.

Task Analysis – Independent Bathing in Children

The majority of individuals shower or bathe independently for personal hygiene reasons and as a stress reliever.  The calm, peaceful warm shower or tub can be very relaxing and purposeful.  When motor skill deficits are present in children, bathing can be a very complicated, arduous task.  When you stop and think about bathing and showering, you start to realize it requires extensive fine motor, gross motor, sensory processing and visual perceptual skills.  In order to for children to accomplish independence with bathing, breaking the skills down into a step by step analysis can be beneficial to determine where certain skills need to be practiced or modified.  Here are 4 different task analysis for independent bathing in children.

STEP BY STEP ANALYSIS OF BATHING/SHOWERING – GROSS MOTOR SKILLS

1. Get a towel – walk and carry a towel
2. Get undressed – removing clothing requires balance and coordination skills
3. Turn on water – reaches forward while maintaining balance
4. Transfer into shower or tub – lifts leg high enough to clear tub, balance on one foot and step over the tub
5. Stand in shower – maintains balance on wet surface
6. Sit in tub – lowers body down into tub and positions legs
7. Clean body with soap – reaches down and around to clean body while maintaining balance
8. Rinse body clean – turns body in shower or lowers extremities in tub to rinse
9. Wash hair – raises arms up overhead to wash hair and maintains balance while eyes are closed
10. Rinse hair clean – extends neck to rinse out shampoo
11. Transfer out of shower – lifts leg high enough to clear tub, balance on one foot and step over tub
12. Dry off with towel – reaches down and around to dry off body without losing balance
13. Get dressed – maintains balance and coordinates getting dressed (see previous post on gross motor skills and dressing)

STEP BY STEP ANALYSIS OF BATHING/SHOWERING – FINE MOTOR SKILLS

1.  Get undressed – manipulate any fasteners on clothing
2. Turn on water – rotation of the hand to turn the faucet on
3. Pick up soap – grasp the soap so it does not slip out of the hand
4. Hold soap – grasps soap while washing body
5. Open shampoo – isolate the muscles in the fingers to open a flip lid or rotation to unscrew a cap
6. Hold shampoo bottle – contract the muscles in the hand to hold the weight of the bottle
7. Squeeze shampoo out – has the strength and graded muscle control in the hands to squeeze an appropriate amount of shampoo out
8. Rubs shampoo into hair – isolates fingertips to rub shampoo into hair and scalp
9. Rinse shampoo out – opens hands to rinse shampoo out
10. Wash with wash cloth – wrings out wash cloth to wipe face
11. Hold wash cloth – grasps wash cloth while wiping face and/or body
12. Turn off water – rotates faucet off

STEP BY STEP ANALYSIS OF BATHING/SHOWERING – SENSORY PROCESSING SKILLS

1. Turn on water to proper temperature – determines hot versus cold
2. Hear water running – auditory system tolerates the sounds of running water
3. Wash body – tolerates tactile input of soap
4. Smells shampoo or soap – olfactory system tolerates the smells of shampoo and soap
5. Use wash cloth – tolerates tactile input on skin of wash cloth
6. Leans head back to wash hair – vestibular system tolerates head being tilted back
7. Wash hair – tolerates water on head and over face
8. Wash face – tolerates tactile input to face and closes mouth to avoid soap in mouth (sensation of taste)
9. Towel dry – tolerates the feel of the towel over the body

STEP BY STEP ANALYSIS OF BATHING/SHOWERING – VISUAL PERCEPTUAL SKILLS

1. Find hand soap, shampoo, washcloth and towel – visually locates all items necessary for bathing
2. Turn on/off water – uses eye hand coordination to reach for faucet
3. Step into shower or tub – visual spatial skills needed to gauge how high to step over tub
4. Reach for shampoo, soap or wash cloth – requires eye hand coordination skills
5. Use shampoo or conditioner – requires visual discrimination skills to determine which bottle is which
6. Get dressed – requires extensive visual perceptual skills (read more about visual perceptual skills and dressing here)

READ MORE about tips and strategies to facilitate independent showering and bathing for a child with special needs.

Check out Personal Hygiene Rubrics (includes bathing and showering rubrics) for assessment at initial evaluation and annual reviews, progress reports, establishing entrance or exit criteria for therapy and creating measurable goals.

This post is part of the Functional Skills for Kids series is on personal hygiene.  This series is a 12-month long series written by occupational and physical therapy bloggers on the development of 12 functional skills for children.  Stop by to see what the other occupational therapists and physical therapists in the Functional Skills for Kids series have written on the school day functions.

Tips and Tricks for Teaching Hand Washing with Kids  | Growing Hands-On Kids

I can brush my teeth! Tips for Tooth Brushing and Oral Care!  | Your Kids OT

Screen Free Quiet Time When Daytime Naps are History  | Kids Play Space

Tips to Help Kids Learn How to Blow Their Nose | Sugar Aunts

Tips to Help Kids Who Hate Haircuts | Mama OT

Sensory Friendly Tips for Kids Who Have Trouble Sleeping  |  The Inspired Treehouse

Your Child With Special Needs: How to Conquer Showering Independently | Miss Jaime OT

Adolescent Hygiene Challenges  | Therapy Fun Zone

 

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Bladder and Bowel Control in Children with Cerebral Palsy

The Journal of Pediatric Urology published research on interviews regarding 346 children with bilateral cerebral palsy (BCP) to describe the age of bladder and bowel control, intellectual impairment and severity of motor disability.

The results indicated the following:

1.  median age for daytime bladder and bowel continence in BCP children was 5.4 years compared with 2.4 years in the controls.
2. at 13.8 years of age, 59.4% of BCP children and 99% of controls were continent by day and 51.9% of BCP children compared with 99.4% of controls were continent for bowel and bladder at night.
3. there was no difference between the attainment of daytime bladder and bowel control in children with cerebral palsy.
4. Night-time bladder and bowel control was slower and less completely attained, with 50% of BCP children continent by the age of 11.8 years compared with 3 years in control children.
5. Gross Motor Functional Classification Score (GMFCS) and intellectual ability were strongly associated with continence attainment but gender was not.

The researchers concluded that 60.8% of children with BCP were continent by day and 54.6% by night at the age of 17 years.  Of the children with BCP who were continent during the day, 86% achieved this by 5.5 years old. The majority (88%) of the children with BCP GMFCS I/II with normal, specific or mild learning impairment were continent for bladder and bowel by day and night.

Reference: Wright AJ, et al. Bladder and bowel continence in bilateral cerebral palsy: A population study.  J Pediatr Urol. 2016 Jun 11. pii: S1477-5131(16)30116-4. doi: 10.1016/j.jpurol.2016.05.027. [Epub ahead of print]

The post Bladder and Bowel Control in Children with Cerebral Palsy appeared first on Your Therapy Source.

Using Activities of Daily Living for Positive Reinforcement

Here are a few suggestions for squeezing in some more practice for activities of daily living and positive reinforcements:

1. Button Bags – sew a felt bag that has a few button closures at the top. In order for the children to get the reward they must unbutton the bag to reveal the prize.


2. Zippered Bags – hide the prizes inside pencil pouches and they have to unzip to reveal the prize


3. Lock and Key – use a lock on a treasure box. To pick a prize you have to unlock the box.


4. Unscrew the Lid – paint the inside of a jar to hide what is inside. The children have to unscrew the lids to get the reward.


5. Shoe Untying – hide the prize inside a sneaker. The child must untie the shoe to get to the prize. Then let the child pick a prize to hide back in the shoe for the next child and tie the shoe back up.


6. Envelope Cutting – hide the prize in an envelope and the child has to use scissors or a letter opener to cut the envelope open. Good one for small stickers.

Positive Affirmation Posters and Cards for Children
Keep a positive attitude with this download of 25 positive affirmation posters and 25
small cards of the posters.

Find out more.


Awards, Signs and Certificates for Pediatric Occupational and Physical Therapists

Need some inexpensive reward ideas? Just print out one of these certificates for a child!

Find out more.

Daily Living Skills in Adolescents with Autism

Autism published research examining the daily living skills standard scores on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales–2nd edition in 417 adolescents with Autism spectrum disorder.  All participants had at least average intelligence. Using statistics, a “daily living skills deficit,” was defined as below average daily living skills in the context of average intelligence quotient.

The results indicated the following:

1. approximately half of the adolescents were identified as having a daily living skills deficit.


2. Autism symptomatology, intelligence quotient, maternal education, age, and sex accounted for only 10% of the variance in predicting a daily living skills deficit.

The researchers concluded that more research needs to be done to determine factors associated with better or worse daily living skills.  This would help to understand the variability in adult outcome in individuals with autism spectrum disorder with average intelligence.

Curious to know - do you find that adolescents with autism struggle with activities of daily living regardless of intelligence level?

Reference:  Duncan, A. and Bishop, S.   Understanding the gap between cognitive abilities and daily living skills in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders with average intelligence.
Published online before print November 25, 2013, doi: 10.1177/1362361313510068 Autism January 2015 vol. 19 no. 1 64-72

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The Life Skills Checklists help track progress towards routine life skills needed to succeed in the school, home and community. The checklists have been created in MIcrosoft Excel. When you record a score for each life skill, it automatically enters into the graph for a visual representation of progress. If you are using the document in PDF format you will have to hand write in the score and the graphing information. This is a great resource for tracking quarterly
progress and establishing goals.  Find out more at http://www.yourtherapysource.com/lifeskillchecklists.html

Free Music and Picture Schedule App

Here is an interesting, unique app to be used as a schedule throughout your child's day. It is Everyday Grooves and is currently free. 

Basically, it is a set of songs that can used to help children go through the daily routine. There are songs to wake up, brush teeth, get dressed, take a bath, read a book, go to bed and more. You can set an alarm for each song to start playing at a certain time of day. 

This would be a fun app for those kids who love music or to song to help then stick to the daily routine. 

Free Music and Picture Schedule App

Here is an interesting, unique app to be used as a schedule throughout your child's day. It is Everyday Grooves and is currently free. 

Basically, it is a set of songs that can used to help children go through the daily routine. There are songs to wake up, brush teeth, get dressed, take a bath, read a book, go to bed and more. You can set an alarm for each song to start playing at a certain time of day. 

This would be a fun app for those kids who love music or to song to help then stick to the daily routine.