[blindkid] Self feeding

[Leah Roberts]

<<He does very well with spoonable foods EXCEPT he will scoop at nothing or
just get very little on his spoon over and over again. I am glad that he is
doing it and not just giving up but surely there is another way? This is one
of those tasks that must be difficult for Jack to use his limited vision
(20/320 right eye, light perception left eye). He avoids looking at his
plate or bowl when he eats.
I was discussing this with his dad last night and I think we need to quit
asking him to look at the bowl/plate.>>

Here's some ideas from my experience with the fine motor and VI combined:

-Do specific play tasks with a spoon or various spoons and scoops, using the
heaviest material possible, like wet sand, aquarium gravel, pea gravel, etc.
Scooping pea gravel from a cookie sheet into an empty coffee can makes a
nice sound. The heaviness of the material helps to stimulate using touch to
know what is on the spoon or scoop.

-Encourage play with tools and messy wet things, like driving cars in
pudding or thickened paint or banana puree or homemade wet dough. Or poking
popsicle sticks into a cake pan of the same materials. Whatever is exciting
for him. But to use something else in the fingers to touch the material, not
just the fingers themselves. Even marbles could be a transitional item if he
doesn't like the other things.

With the poking, talk about what he is feeling, like whether the popsicle
stick is poking the metal of the cake pan, or the thick sticky dough.
Sometimes John would just need a short discussion of a mental concept that
involved his body, and then he would become interested and initiate more
play around that concept himself.

-Try some foods that are also heavy and that provide a lot of sensory
feedback to the hand, like refried beans or pudding.

-Try changing the weight of the utensil to see if it wakes his touch
perception up, like using a light plastic spoon or a heavy weighted spoon.

Does he have the ability to hold the utensil between thumb and palm, or are
the digits kind of all pointing the same direction?

HTH

Leah