DIY Games to Encourage Visual Tracking Skills

DIY Games to Encourage Visual Tracking Skills

Visual perceptual skills require the ability to see, organize and interpret visual information.  There are many different types of visual perceptual skills that are explained in detail here.  Visual tracking is one type of visual perceptual skills.  Visual tracking is the ability to control the eye movements using the oculomotor system (vision and eye muscles working together). There are two types of visual tracking: maintaining your focus on a moving object and switching your focus between two objects.

Visual tracking is necessary to follow an object moving in space and to follow stationary objects. It is a key component to fluid reading, coordination tasks, body awareness and postural control. Visual tracking allows you to know what you are looking at and where to look. Children need to practice and learn these skills throughout childhood development.  Here is a few fun, do it yourself (DIY) games to encourage visual tracking skills:

1.  Balloon Volleyball – blow up a balloon and start hitting it back and forth to each other.  This game encourages visual focus, visual-spatial skills, and visual motor skills.  You can use your hands or add in physical activity with these Activity Balloon Bats.  If you need to make it easier to start, try this giant balloon volleyball game.
2. Kid Balloon Boxing – this activity requires visual tracking and eye-hand coordination at the same time.
3. Pool Noodle Visual Tracking Ring – super cheap and super easy.
4. Visual Tube – use a cardboard tube, colored tape, and a balloon to create this game.
5. I Spy Movement Breaks – Make a sensory bottle with hidden exercise cards.  The children have to visually track the each of the exercise cards and complete the activity.

Looking for a quick, no prep visual tracking activity?  Check out Ready, Set, Scan.

This digital download includes 12 visual scanning and discrimination activities.  How fast can you scan, find and mark each item? There are 12 challenges in all with different themes including: shapes, animals, fruit, party, travel and babies.  Just print and start the search.  Follow the directions: start a timer, scan for one object at a time, mark each object and stop the timer.  Record your time in the box provided.  Dot markers work great for marking the item.  Use a different color dot marker for each item.  FIND OUT MORE.

 

 

The post DIY Games to Encourage Visual Tracking Skills appeared first on Your Therapy Source.

Kid Balloon Boxing to Practice Coordination and Timing Skills

This fun activity encourages bilateral coordination, timing, eye hand coordination, visual tracking skills and upper extremity muscle strengthening. The key to this activity is teaching the child to hit each balloon or ball with the right hand and left in a rhythmic, controlled pattern. Have fun with it!

Need more activity ideas? Turn fine motor skills into gross motor skills with the activity ideas in Motor Magic.

Check out Play Strong to encourage muscle strenghtening through play.

Find and Color Christmas Doodles

Find and Color Christmas Doodle is the latest freebie from a new download - Christmas Doodle Find.  This is a fun, no prep activity to practice visual tracking, visual discrimination and visual motor skills.  Find out more information at http://www.yourtherapysource.com/doodlechristmas

Visual Tracking and Visual Motor Freebie

Here is a FREE sample activity from Find the Animals.  Challenge visual tracking, visual spatial and visual motor skills with this activity.  You can download the free puzzles here http://yourtherapysource.com/findanimalsfreebie.html

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Get the complete download here http://yourtherapysource.com/findanimals.html

Patterns, Patterns, Patterns

Here are 6 FREE sample pages from Patterns, Patterns, Patterns  which is a collection of over 50 visual perceptual activities involving patterns. Children will be challenged to draw the patterns and find shapes, numbers or objects in a pattern. The activity pages are in black and
white.

Patterns, Patterns, Patterns stimulates:
visual motor skills
visual perceptual skills
visual closure skills
visual discrimination
spatial relationships
visual memory

Download your free sample pages at http://www.yourtherapysource.com/patternsfree.html

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Signs of Autism at 1 Month

The August issue of Pediatrics reports on a retrospective study over 11 years of over 2100 NICU newborns. The researchers discovered that the infants who later received a diagnosis of autism had a higher incidence of persistant neurobehavioral abnormalities such as increased upper extremity muscle tone and asymmetrical visual tracking at one month of age. The children who were identified with autism were 4 times more likely to be male and 2 weeks younger at birth. By the time the infants were 4 months of age, a preference for increased visual stimulation was observed. In addition, by 7 months of age a decrease in motor performance was observed. At 10 months of age, a decrease in cognitive performance was seen.

Reference: Todd Neale. Deficits in Early Infancy May Point to Autism. Retrieved from MedPage Today on 8/2/10 at http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/Autism/21474