An exercise ball is one of my must-haves when working in Early Intervention or Preschool Classes. This is a great activity IF your child enjoys vestibular or proprioceptive input. If your child avoids these types of activities, you can still try it, but you’ll need to be sensitive to your child’s preferences and go at a much slower pace
I have found that using a lot of sensory motor activities not only increases engagement (because it’s fun!) but it also increases communication and motivation.
I’ve had several kids I’ve worked with that have started initiating (opening circles) more and using more words just from doing activities like bouncing on a ball.
What you want to do first is create some type of sequence or routine. For example if your child likes to sit on top of the ball and have you bounce him, then do that. The sequence may look something like this:
If this is the first time you’re doing the activity, then set up the sequence by doing it several times until you know your child is engaged and wants more. Once your child is fully engaged, then the next time you finish the sequence just wait. Don’t say anything, just use facial expressions.
As soon as your child does anything to indicate he wants more, then put him on the ball. This can be anything, your child may use a full sentence to ask more, or your child may try to get on the ball by himself. Whatever your child does, don’t discount it. This is communication.
Sometimes adults will discount a child’s attempt at communication just because it’s not how the adult wants the child to do it. Please don’t do this. Our goal with this activity is to get more and more circles of communication (initiating and responding). If you ignore your child’s attempt to communicate, you’re stopping the flow and thus forfeiting him the chance to increase those circles.
As your child increases his consecutive circles of communication, and as his motivation increases, you just might hear more verbal words as well.
Using an exercise ball in Early Intervention is not only good for communication, but it can be calming for kids that are disregulated. You can also use an exercise ball to work on cognitive skills, motor skills, and even pretend play.
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This activity is great for kids at an FDL of: 1-6
The Functional Developmental Levels (FDL) are based on The PLAY Project and DIR/Floortime
This activity is great for kids primarily participating in stages: 1-6
The Stages of Play come from Parten’s Stages of Social Play.
This activity includes: vestibular and proprioception
Our senses include more than the usual 5 senses. Some kids may seek certain types of sensory input and/or avoid other types.
This activity is good for targeting the following developmental skills: communication, cognitive, motor, social
These are the main areas of child development addressed in the Early Intervention Tutorials
There are so many ways to play with an exercise ball, here are just a few:
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In this section, I will give you specific examples of what you can do in this activity to address specific areas of development.
