A crucial aspect of Occupational Therapy is the development of early motor skills in young children, especially those with an Autism Spectrum disorder or a similar social difficulty. However, our contemporary world is filled with electronics that young children are practically glued to, and therefore the development of their motor capabilities is limited. When I first sparked interest in this field, I knew that I wanted to work specifically with kids. This idea inspired me to create something that would allow children to improve their livelihood in conjunction with their families. Therefore, my original work proposal is to create the design and advertisement of a large three-dimensional play structure that babies and toddlers can interact with in order to develop both fine and broad motor skills, as well as situational awareness.
As explained by Elissa Cashman, an OTR at Speech & Occupational Therapy of North Texas in Frisco, there are a number of things children need to do on a daily basis in order for them to properly develop these sufficient motor skills. These may include playing with objects in their hands, crawling around, falling down, and many more physical movements. Then again, despite my existing insight into what function motor skills serve in a child’s life, I will need to learn more about specific mental processes in order to accomplish this original work. Going forward, I will need to heavily redirect my focus towards discovering what specific tools and objects children may interact with when developing these skills. It will also be equally important to ensure that the structure will be entertaining and will not bore the children. By discovering what procedures OTRs follow when helping a young child develop motor skills and situational awareness, I will begin to understand exactly what purposes my original work should serve. I plan on making a relatively large play structure filled with various toys that kids can interact with to help strengthen their motor skills. This is different from similar concepts that are already in existence because this project will allow children to be within their experience, literally. Instead of looking at an abacus that sits in their hand, for instance, they are inside the abacus. This will help not only increase their fine motor skills, but also develop their situational awareness as they will be encouraged to examine and evaluate their surroundings. The structure will be able to be manipulated by the child so that they can learn how their actions influence their environment. I understand that this will be a very big challenge. I will eventually, for my final product, be creating a physical play structure large enough for a child to climb inside of and move around, and strong enough to support their weight and withstand unpredictable bodily movements. Therefore, I will need to highly consider both the functionality and safety of my project. Luckily, I have exceptional skills in using the program Google Sketchup. I will have to bring all of these skills together and probably reference online tutorials regarding certain aspects of carpentry in order to finish the structure. I plan to expose my creation to the public by creating ads for it and eventually allowing my young relatives to interact with it before bringing it into a place of commons such as a public park. In the park, I will have an explanation of the ISM program prepared so that parents can understand what the purpose of my creation is while their children have to opportunity to play with it. Hopefully, my interactions with parents and children will both raise awareness about the importance of babies and toddlers developing motor skills and give children an opportunity to practice these developments themselves. Included are a few screenshots of my completed original work model, as well as a virtual tour of the model in Google Sketchup and an image of the advertisement that I will eventually present to the public.
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