Obstacle Courses: Why Speech and Occupational Therapists love them!
Posted: November 2, 2021
An obstacle course allows for sensory motor learning while targeting many skills, and the possibilities are endless! Obstacle courses allow for praxis training leading to social emotional skill development and communication skills. Praxis is the ability to efficiently plan and execute novel motor tasks.
Praxis includes ideation (coming up with the idea), initiation (beginning the task), execution of the task (motor performance), and adaptation. These skills create the foundation for independence and elaboration in play, self-care skills and motor activities.
Obstacle courses target multiple sensory systems at once which is the foundation for skill development:
By targeting each of these sensory systems, this allows a child to reach optimal level of arousal and self-regulation. Through various activities within the path/sequence, this can be calming or alerting to your child.
Always have a clear start and end to your path, or make it a continuous loop. For increased predictability add in a puzzle or other fine motor task to signal completion of the course.
Obstacle courses are a great way to target the following skills:
Gross motor:
Safety Awareness:
- Proprioception (nerve receptors in muscles and joints)– bouncing, jumping, pulling, pushing, lifting, climbing, crawling, tunnels
- Vestibular (nerve receptors in inner ear)– movement in all directions up, down, dynamic swings
- Tactile- Varied materials in contact with the body (e.g. spandex/lycra, carpet, rice/bean sensory bins, shaving cream)
- Balance
- Bilateral coordination
- Motor planning
- Postural control and righting reflexes
- Core strength
- Timing and sequencing
- Praxis
- Body awareness
- Following rules
- Impulse control
- Working memory
- Sequencing
- Problem solving
- Flexibility
- Turn taking
- Communication
- Collaboration to problem solve
- Play skills
- Sense of accomplishment
- Hand-eye coordination
- Ocular motor skills
- Visual spatial awareness