What do you enjoy to do when you are relaxing at home? We all have hobbies we enjoy, and individuals with CHARGE Syndrome are no different. It is important to not only recognize this but to also assist them with advancing their skills. Learning and building on a skill helps to develop not only the skill at hand, it helps to develop a multitude of other things at the same time!
We are huge advocates of activities that are multifunctional in enjoyment and skill building. Jacob LOVES crafts, so around here we have a lot of trips to the art store as well as projects going on all the time. While the subject changes from week to week, the skills learned tend to stay the same.
Did you know that art can be therapeutic to the individual you work with? What is Art Therapy?
Good Therapy.org defines Art Therapy as a hybrid field largely influenced by the disciplines of art and psychology, uses the creative process, pieces of art created in therapy, and third-party artwork to help people in treatment develop self-awareness, explore emotions, address unresolved emotional conflicts, improve social skills, and raise self-esteem. Art therapy primarily aims to help individuals experiencing emotional and psychological challenges achieve personal well-being and improved levels of function.
We use art as a way to help Jacob express himself and communicate what he sees to the world. He is able to use his hands to show us things he is unable to communicate through verbal or ASL. However, while art therapy is known for its therapeutic benefits for emotional and social skills, we find that it also helps with fine motor skills, hand eye coordination, time management, planning and transitioning from one task to another.
You can see below some examples of Jacob’s newest artwork. He used several techniques to make his artwork!He used poster dot markers to make a splatter pattern, which helped him fine tune his hand movements. Taping the canvas helped him with detail comprehension as well as sensory development (think sticky side). Finally, he worked with water colors and mixing colors, this helps with seeing where color needs to go (vision) and placing color where it needs to go (fine motor skills). While these projects helped Jacob with his skill building and goals, it was more importantly FUN to do. We are so grateful to have caregivers that are compassionate and assist Jacob in having a life he loves that also encourages him to grow.
