DIY Tactile Board

Some textures on my board: a piece of plastic notebook cover, fuzzy fabric, burlap, foam piece, terry cloth, glitter foam, beads, fleece, and feathers

I have some kids on my caseload who developmentally are not at the grasping stage due to multiple/significant disabilities (although chronologically they are way past that developmental stage).  These kids do not get much tactile/sensory input to their hands or use their hands for exploring.  You can provide them with more exposure to tactile input and encourage active exploration with their hands by make a tactile board.  This is something that you can make yourself by adhering various textures of cloth/items that you have lying around to a foam poster board.

I started by finding pieces of cloth and various textured items- I cut them into squares and glued them to a piece of foam board using Gorilla Glue http://www.gorillatough.com/index.php?page=store-locator&gclid=CP3X0LPmtsoCFYVFaQodthgE3Q.  Why Gorilla Glue?  Because I seem to have more luck with things adhering with Gorilla Glue vs. school glue, craft glue or use of a glue gun.  As Gorilla Glue dries, it expands.

Adding some eye catching colors can encourage tracking and visual fixation as well as reaching toward a preferred texture-  this particular student of mine is drawn to metallic/shiny things.  Of course you want to be careful what you adhere to the board, especially if you have someone who mouths things or puts things in their mouth if they should pull them off of the board.  Supervision is required for safety while your student is accessing the board for this reason.

You can present the board flat on the table top or at an incline.  You could also attach it to/hang it on a wall to make it a vertical surface to explore.  You could also make less squares or make the tactile squares interchangeable with velcro so that you can move the textures around.  Mine are stationary.

My student began by exploring with one hand only-

Soon he began adding his other hand to the board- and kept his fingers out of his mouth.

I put some metallic duct tape around the perimeter of the board as well.