“Huh?” was my first intelligent response when Diane, the occupational therapist who works on my children’s sensory needs, explained Stereognosis to me. She had to repeat herself as I was confused and apparently it was obvious on my very expressive face (don’t ask me to play poker).
“Stereognosis is the ability to identify an object by touch,” she said simply. It’s not that I didn’t understand her the first time – it’s just that the whole concept of not being able to tell what an object is by only feeling it was a whole new concept in regards to my children’s sensory issues. Besides that, the word itself is strange and I had to repeat it to myself several times and have her spell it for me so I could pronounce it correctly.
“So what do you do for it?” I asked, wide-eyed as I tried to imagine what kind of games and activities she must have in her bag of tricks.
She smiled knowingly and produced a large wad of green goop, the kind you find in the toy department. It’s not the slimy, slippery kind. It’s more like play dough that sticks together and doesn’t easily pull apart. Inside she had hidden several small cubes with letters on each side (like the game Boggle). Diane gave the wad of goop to my second son who worked to get each of the cubes out. It took him several minutes, but eventually he found ten cubes. With those ten cubes, Diane helped him spell the word HERMIT CRAB, and then he wrote the word down on a sheet of lined paper.
As a supplemental activity to help the boys develop their sense of stereognosis, Diane suggested using a shoebox filled with rice and hide objects inside. The boys are to try and identify the object before they extract it from the box. My boys love this game. But I’ve learned that it’s best played on a bed sheet because rice gets all over the place and it’s easier to clean up afterwards by just grasping the four corners and funneling it back into the shoebox.
Next time: Handwriting games
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