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Body Awareness and Spatial Relationship Activity

Need a quick body awareness and spatial relationship brain break that combines estimation with movement and motor planning?  Here is a simple activity that helps students to understand spatial relationships to objects in the classroom. Start out with each student standing up next to their desk.  Have them guess how many baby steps it will […]

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Quiet Eye Training to Help with Visual Motor Skills

Are you familiar with “Quiet Eye Training”?  This is a technique that attempts to get the eye to focus more instead of flicking about during coordination tasks.  It teaches the eye to look at the ball long enough to process the information.  The individual is reminded to briefly look at the exact spot where you […]

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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: 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. Zippered […]

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Physical Activity, Self-Regulation, and Preschoolers

Early Education and Development recently published research on whether active play during recess was associated with self-regulation and academic achievement in preschoolers.  Fifty one children were assessed on self-regulation, active play, and early academic achievement. The results indicated the following: 1.  higher active play was associated with better self-regulation, which in turn was associated with […]

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Research: Analysis of Sensory Integration Therapy

The Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities published a meta-analysis on the use of sensory integration with individuals who have or at risk for a developmental or learning disability or delay. The outcomes from 30 studies on sensory integration therapy were reviewed and analyzed. The results were the following: 1. Studies that compared sensory integration […]

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Gait Trainer Use at School and Home

Clinical Rehabilitation published a review of the research on gait trainer use in home and school settings for children with motor impairments.  Seventeen studies involving 182 children met the inclusion criteria. The results indicated the following: 1.  one small randomized controlled trial suggested a non-significant trend toward increased walking distance 2.  a evidence level II study […]

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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 https://www.yourtherapysource.com/findanimalsfreebie.html [subscribe2] Get the complete download here https://www.yourtherapysource.com/findanimals.html

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Motor Skill Abilities and Disruptive Behavior Disorder

Research in Developmental Disabilities published research on the motor abilities of 99 adolescents with disruptive behavior disorder (DBD) and evaluated the role of comorbid ADHD.  Each participant was assessed with The Bruininks–Oseretsky test of motor proficiency, Second Edition.  In addition, further statistical analyses were completed to determine differences in motor profiles between individuals diagnosed with […]

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Physical Activity, Executive Function and ADHD

Research in Developmental Disabilities published research on 43 children with ADHD between 7-12 years old to determine if there are effects of different types of physical activity on executive functioning.  A 12 week training program included two different groups: experimental group 1 (EG1) included 13 children who participated in ball handling, balance and manual dexterity […]

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Motor Skills, ADHD and Medication

Research in Developmental Disabilities published a review of 45 research articles analyzing the motor skills of of children (between 6-16 years old) with ADHD  and the influence of medication on their motor skills. The results indicated the following: 1.  more than half of the children with ADHD have difficulties with gross and fine motor skills. […]