Holiday gifts to improve visual & oral motor skills
Visual motor skills (how well your eyes work successfully for daily skills), as mentioned earlier, are best supported when there’s a stronger trunk. This allows the head stability at the base, allowing it the freedom to focus on demands whatever task is in front of them. Some activities and toys good for kids that need to work on visual attention, tracking and scanning are:
Balloon volleyball
Tracing (Dot to Dot or Mad Lib books)
Popping bubbles with intention
Memory card game
‘Spot t’ card game
There’s a huge visual component in video games, but nothing can replace the touch and experience of 3-D objects that one can follow with the eyes, giving depth perception and real life tactile interaction. The younger you introduce video games to children and expose their brains to the rapid frequency of high end light waves, the more the brain structure begins to want and need that on a regular basis. Standard 3-D tangible toys to help build these skills in a balanced, proportional way is recommended. Keep children’s eyes and hands busy with the basics for exploration when they are young in order to build solid foundational development skills.
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The mouth is used for expressions, eating, breathing, and more. The gift ideas below can help children with weak mouth muscles, picky or sloppy eaters, kids that chew on their shirt collar or sleeves, kids that don’t like the feeling of food on their face, or those that would like to learn how to whistle or blow up a balloon. By working on the strength and coordination of their mouth muscles and breathing rhythm, they are able to better master these skills.
Here are some gift ideas you can buy them to help with these skills:
Balloons
Kazoos
Vibrating tooth brush
Chewy tube necklace
Face masks, lip balm
Straw blowing games
Oral motor activities, toys and skills can also be addressed through food choices. Eating fun, healthy food, and also taste-testing different spices, chewy foods and thickness, are all great ways to help liven up and work on mouth skills. These skills are needed for good speech, arousal regulation, breath regulation, facial expressions for non verbal and verbal communication, eating and so much more. Explore with sweet and tart fruit, different healthy nut butters, and raw vegetables and seasonings.