Tactile Play

I'm writing this blog post in hopes that it may help another little guy or gal as these activities have helped Petey. At the suggestion of Petey's speech therapist, I have increased tactile play activities in order to increase his attention span, which is usually about 30 seconds. He loves manipulating his hands around in various textures (mostly slimy). Everything I've used is non-toxic and many are food items. Here are a couple examples.

I started with pumpkin guts and he played with them for 37 minutes the first time and 50 minutes the second time. Absolutely amazing!

An unexpected bonus when Petey played with pudding was that he succeeded in using a spoon to feed himself for the first time! (He has fed himself independently since a few days after he joined our family, but always with his fingers.)

In related news, Petey also learned to use a fork to feed himself yesterday. Granted, he only ate about 10% of the food with the fork and used his hands for the rest, but I'm so proud of him for learning these new skills.

~Allie