Handwriting can be challenging for children. One factor may be excessive pencil pressure. Occupational Therapists utilize occupation-based methods to teach correct pressure adjustment.
One such method includes using a vibrating pen as sensory input for children. They can use it to improve kinesthetic feedback from paper and to better grade pencil pressure.
It’s easy to use
This vibrating writing tool is easy and fun for children to use, providing them with an enjoyable way to concentrate and focus on their handwriting skills while increasing kinesthetic awareness of the hand. Available in multiple colors and textures to meet children’s preferences, this writing aid can also be combined with other sensory tools for an integrated approach to handwriting.
One major difficulty faced by children with special needs is mastering and maintaining legible, fluent, and efficient individual handwriting. Researchers suspect this issue to stem from a poorly developed graphomotor system – including pressure modulation – which contributes to this difficulty. Therefore, this multimethods study was undertaken with children receiving interviews or questionnaires; user diaries kept with occupational therapists; analysis of writing data collected via SensoGrip pen; as well as qualitative interviews and questionnaires completed with parents as a measure for usability evaluation.
The results of the study demonstrated that children were able to effectively adjust pressure readings using a mobile app, which provided visual representations of their pressure patterns. Occupational Therapists assisted these children in using this technology, helping them understand its graph patterns as well as improving writing and drawing.
Throughout the study, most of the children continued using the SensoGrip pen between sessions at home – some did this daily, others multiple times per week and one child used it all day long! Unfortunately, some did not use the pens due to being concerned that it may get lost or damaged or because their parents did not support it being used regularly.
This vibrating pencil is an ideal option for children and teenagers with autism and sensory integration disorders. It promotes dynamic tripod grasps that can be used for letter formation, tracing mazes and other handwriting tasks – perfect for letter formation, tracing mazes or following mazes! Plus its triangular shape and slightly heavy weight encourage full range of hand motion as well as oral motor chew breaks! Plus the bite-n-chew tip allows users to add breaks.
It’s effective
Occupational therapy provides many tools and activities that can benefit children with autism or sensory processing disorders, including vibrating pillows, mats and handheld devices that provide proprioceptive input that can help regulate nervous systems while also aiding children to remain calm and focused. Vibrating pens offer proprioceptive input that may also assist children in remaining calm and focused.
Sandpaper can provide heavy work for small muscles in the hand; brush pens require consistent pressure when writing (which helps teach how to grade pressure when handwriting); mystery writing allows a peer or teacher to move the student’s hands in the air to draw shapes/letters while they guess what has been drawn by a peer or teacher.
Other sensory activities that help foster eye/hand coordination include placing your child on a slant board or using a plant sprayer to water flowers, playing ball/darts or using an iPad for coloring pictures.
