backyard therapy: toe tap the angry birds style

 

 

Trevy’s right sided weakness is so subtle that to the untrained eye it’s practically invisible.

 

 

It’s easy to miss how after a couple two footed frog hops his right side moves a smidge more slowly and doesn’t get as much air.  Or how his right foot ever so slightly starts to drag a bit while he’s running.  The toes of his right shoes show the scuffing though.  I need to take pictures as evidence!  You know…for the doubters.  Or to place on the table during IEP meetings. 

 

 

Anyway.  Mild or not…his right side is compromised.  He’s always had right sided weakness but after his surgery his right side was completely paralyzed.  We’ve encouraged him to work hard (most times against his will) to help his healthy right brain rewire all those functions the left should control.  In a perfect world, he’d be plugged into an intensive outpatient PT program.  And for a while we were.  But alas, our world is far from perfect and the closest facility is 30 minutes away.  We fizzled out.  Occasionally, I wrestle with my mommy guilt over the outpatient PT/OT fizzle and do crazy things like co-found a Special Olympics program (super close to home) instead!  Or make up a touch the angry birds with your toes game to work on that homework Miss. Out Patient PT gave us ages ago…

 

 

 

The straight strip is for standing up toe touches.  The circular is for seated work.  There is no science behind it.  I just thought shapes would be fun.

 

 

For standing the idea is to have him keep his foot on the floor and use just his big toe to touch the color angry bird I direct.  This is to isolate that singular function/muscle.  He’s pretty good at lifting his whole foot up but those precise toe movements are really tough (especially the right) without a LOT of hard thinking work.  He resists anything that requires too much work so I thought maybe adding some fun characters would help.

 

 

And it did but still… 

 

 

The reality of how it played out this first time was more stomping and kicking and complaining.  “I no like this game!” his final assessment.  He also tried to rip up the strip!  I knew I should laminate it before we used it.

 

 

But we’ll get there.  I’m sure of it!

 

 

Daddy came to our rescue and helped with the angry bird resistance band for the seated toe touches.  The band requires even more mental powers to work.

 

 

It’s really amazing that I caught a smile! 

 

 

 

I highly doubt this will ever be a preferred activity for Trevy but at least the angry birds make it a little more fun!

 

 

I found all my angry bird printables here but thanks to google images you could do this with any faves that your child is into right now!

 

 

…danielle