Using flashlights, you can create a fun range of activities that can help strengthen your child’s visual-motor skills, bilateral integration, hand-eye coordination, gross-motor coordination, and communication skills. The fun of the motion of the lights in the darkness draws the child in, promoting participation and feeling “connected.” Watching lights in motion is particularly enjoyable for children with autistic spectrum disorders.
What You Will Need:
- Two flashlights
- A semi-dark room
Activities:
1. Lay beside your child, face up, on the floor. Using one flashlight, make a slow path of light across the ceiling. Tell your child to “watch the light, but don’t move your head.” Encourage your child to track the light as it moves across the ceiling.
2. Give your child a flashlight, too. As your light moves across the ceiling, instruct her to keep her light spot shining exactly on top of yours. Slowly speed up the movement of your light, seeing if she can follow along. As she gets better, zig-zag and see how well she can match your patterns.
3. Stand up with your child, and using only your flashlight, make a spot on the floor. Have him jump on top of the spot. Once he’s in the spot, wait a moment, and then move it to another place on the floor, encouraging him to jump into it. Slowly speed up the movement of the tag spots to build up intensity. Don’t pull the light away before he reaches the spot, or the game will become frustrating. Make sure he has a joyous moment of getting to “tag” the light before moving it.
4. Write a letter on the wall using your flashlight. Can she guess which one you’ve written? Now let her try.
5. Shine a small spot on the wall, encouraging your child to touch or “tag” it. Have her keep her hand on the spot while you move the light to another spot. She must use her other hand to touch the new spot, causing her to cross her arms and cross the midline.
6. Play a light form of “twister,” where your child must touch one light spot with part of his body, then keep his arm or leg in that place while you move the spotlight to a reachable new location. He must use another part of his body to touch that spot, etc.
7. Let your child shine the spots, and laugh while watching you try to tag them!
8. Make shadow puppet shows for a fun finale!
