I am working with a third grade student who is just learning braille and she is having difficulty with finger isolation. She has been in a life skills setting and I’m trying to “undo” some of her learned behaviors. For example, her left hand typically holds the paper while she reads with her right hand. Trying to get both hands to work together has been a challenge, but she is making progress.
She has been using a brailler and trying to move past scribbling to brailling actual letters. This has been difficult for her, however, and her “k” is always an “l”. I asked the OT (Occupational Therapist) for help and she has been amazingly helpful! She and her assistant have been doing finger strengthening activities with the student using theraputty and working with finger puppets. My student is not a fan of the finger puppets, so the COTA created a pipe cleaner “puppet” which she will tolerate.
We are also doing the movements for “Where is Thumbkin”. Our COTA found a YouTube video that we’ve been using to guide us with our finger play before we start brailling.
It’s still too early to know if this will work or not, but I’ve got high hopes!
