Easy Tactile Sensory Activities for Children with Autism
- April 26, 2021
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Every Small Victory Is Worth Celebrating
Do you have a child with autism? If so, you know that every small victory is worth celebrating. As a teacher, parent or grandparent of a child with autism, you know that finding the right sensory activities can be key to their success and happiness. – and it’s perfect for promoting calm and focus.
15 Tactile Sensory Crafts
Kids suffering from Autism have problems in interacting and communicating with others. Fortunately, to cure this disorder, no medicine is required. Parents and teachers can help the kids to overcome this disorder with help of some art and craft ideas. And that’s exactly with what I am here for. Here is a list of 15 tactile sensory crafts that will surely have a positive effect on kids suffering from Autism.
Tactile Sensory Painting Ideas
I am sure everyone will agree that painting is one of the most beloved activities of the kids. So obviously I have some awesome painting ideas for kids.
Check Out These Autism Crafts
Footprint Painting
Large roll of paper is the perfect material for this as well as paper towels and water on hand for cleaning the paint off the children’s feet. We can make a particular scene in everything that we do or maybe we can also let them do free form. This will develop their creativity and their foot coordination. Footprint Painting is a wonderful opportunity for infants to learn.
Babies learn cause and effect when they see that their feet are making prints on the paper. They learn tactile sensory skills from touching the paint and feeling how paint feels on their skin and in between their toes.
Touch Painting
In this activity the kids will have their own paints and the facilitator will provide a variety of things to paint. It can be an egg tray, bubble wrap or whatever it may be. As long as they can explore their sense of touch and creativity. Create a fun tactile painting experience for your kids by exploring Touch Painting.
Your kids will enjoy exploring the sense of touch while creating art.
Finger Painting
Kids love to experiment and do something new. In this activity the kids will freely make use of all the colors and paint whatever they want. This tactile sensory activity will help the learner to be creative and will be able to recognize new colors. Finger painting is easier for little fingers that are not yet ready to manipulate a brush.
Fine Motor Development: Finger Painting strengthens the finger and small hand muscles developing prewriting skills. Color recognition and children can discover informally about mixing and exploring colors.
Plastic Bag Painting
Some of the children with Autism find it hard to touch something that they are not familiar with. This activity will help them paint without having to actually touch it and make a big mess. All you need is a plastic bag, Poster paint and a canvas. All the materials are very accessible and easy to find, it is just a matter of seconds and there you have it all.
Bubble Wrap Painting
Bubble wraps can be more than just something that you can pop to make your hands busy. Children with Autism find colors overwhelming and sometimes will increase their tantrums and might be hard to deal with. This activity will help them deal with sensation overload. It will help them introduce the fun side of the otherwise overwhelming world by doing this project.
The materials used here are also accessible and easy to find. This may be a messier option, but it is certainly loads of fun. This Activity will require a large sheet of paper, paint, and bubble wrap. Tape together a bubble wrap “shoe” for your child and have different colors of paint laid out.
Allow your child to walk along the paper and watch them create different color combinations with a visually appealing texture.
Learning Ideas for Tactile Sensory Disorder
Water Tub Colors
Children with Autism find water comfortable, so this is an activity that they can do without difficulty. You just need soap, food coloring, tubs and a few cups. Guide your child on the different colors that he should use. This is just a simple activity that will benefit both their touch and sight.
Fill 1 tub with soap and water and another tub with colored soapy water. Allow your child to experiment with creating different colors with the soapy water. This activity is fun, easy, and can be a great introduction for your child to the principles of color mixing.
Sand Art
Sand has a texture and it is good for a child with Autism because it exposes them to a different texture experience. Regular sand is pretty dangerous for the kids so you need those edible ones and you can make it more fun by doing it outside. Development of fine motor skills. Eye & hand coordination – watching and doing and coordinating these actions.
Promote creativity and imagination through role and developing stories. Sensory- Development of the sense of touch.
Corn Flour Slime
As we all know water is a friend for a child with autism so we incorporate it to our craft activity. We just need 3 ingredients Corn flour, water and coloring. Just as easy as that the child can already explore texture such as watery and starchy by touching it. It is best if you do it outside, it would be less messy.
Try making a mixture of cornstarch and water called oobleck. Oobleck is a non-Newtonian fluid; it has properties of both liquids and solids. You can slowly dip your hand into it like a liquid, but if you squeeze the oobleck or punch it, it will feel solid.
Sensory Collage
Sometimes, Autism Children with tactile sensory disorders have difficulty adjusting with the different textures. Ease it by making a variety of new materials you use for craft. It will help them overcome their frustrations to different textures and it will also help them be introduced to a wider range of textures. Making a collage helps your child build fine motor skills.
It’s also a fun way to encourage your child’s awareness of color and texture. And if you talk with your child about his college, it helps his language development too.
Finger Shape Pointing
For kids to learn and be able to use patterns and shapes, the facilitator needs to provide the kid a shape and the kid will use his finger to create dots and be able to follow the pattern set by the facilitator. This will develop their hand and eye coordination.
Fun Ideas For Tactile Sensory
Let’s just do something completely different. These ideas are super fun and I am sure the kids are going to an awesome time with these craft projects.
Scented Play Dough
Play dough is a treat for all the kids. There will be a lot of things we need but this will also develop a lot of skills. This activity will help the kids to recognize scents and will be able to explore the texture of play dough. Play dough provides a great sensory medium, which can be used to help children who struggle with sensory processing disorder.
Sensory seeking children can squish, squash, pound and gloop the play dough to give themselves lovely proprioceptive and tactile feedback. But, did you also know that the play dough helps you develop your cognitive skills, your social and emotional skills and perhaps even your language and communication skills. An educator will encourage children to share their thoughts and feelings when playing with play dough.
Mud Kitchen
In this tactile sensory activity, the kids will also learn some life skills and will be able to be creative. This will let them make a lot of food out of mud and will also know what utensil to use in every food that they are doing. Mud kitchens are exciting, messy, creative areas to play. Children experience sensory, emotional and imaginative play as well as developing math, science and speaking skills.
They also benefit from playing outside and interacting with other children. Mud kitchens stimulate creativity and imagination and provide engaging and valuable play to children in a wide age range. Children between age one and seven will get the most out of a mud kitchen, but older children are still likely to take pleasure from it too.
Paper Plate Crafts
This will enable the kids to know their limits. It only lies between the curves of the circle paper plate. Work on coloring, cutting, and gluing skills to make something as simple or multi-step as the child needs it to be. We all love paper plate crafts for kids!
Nothing beats crafting with a frugal material and we can all agree paper plate craft fits the description. And there are so many fun things you can create with a bit of paint and some cutting. We love the versatility of this crafting material as you can make it fit for any age group – from ideas easy enough for toddlers to do, through preschoolers, kids in kindergarten and even older kids to enjoy.
Contact Paper Shapes
In this activity the kids will practice ripping, cutting, picking up tissue paper, matching shapes, and tolerating sticky contact paper to create a stained glass-like design. As a facilitator, we can change the theme to reflect seasonal colors and shape. Contact paper is one of the most useful craft supplies for the classroom. It is your best friend for creating all sorts of sun catchers and fun colleges.
However, there are actually a lot of color learning and fine motor activities that can be done using contact paper in addition to these beautiful art activities.
Making Music
Why not turn some of those everyday sensory materials into something musical? Hard pasta, rice, beads, tin foil, and rubber bands all provide different auditory feedback when you shake or roll it inside a cardboard tube. Music is a great way to engage children with language and motor imitation, so consider turning your next craft time into a music maker.
Skills for School Readiness
Music ignites all areas of child development and skills for school readiness, including intellectual, social-emotional, motor, language, and overall literacy. It helps the body and the mind work together. Exposing children to music during early development helps them learn the sounds and meanings of words.
Conclusion on Tactile Sensory
ASD can be a very isolating experience for children and their families. However, by providing tactile sensory activity, we can help these individuals feel more connected to the world around them. Through our research, we have found that there are many benefits to providing tactile sensory activity for children with autism. These activities can improve communication, increase socialization, and promote independence.
If you would like to learn more about how you can provide tactile sensory activity for your child or loved one with autism, please comment below. We would love to hear from you!
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the the importance of Arts & Crafts?
- Stress relief.
- Confidence boost.
- Increases empathy.
- Improves quality of life for those with illness.
- Enhances brain productivity.
- Lessens effect of serious health conditions.
How does arts and crafts help a child's development?
When creating an arts and crafts project, children are able to develop their fine motor skills. … Art also allows for your child to expand their essential vocabulary. They’ll learn the names of different shapes, colors, and materials
What we can make in art and craft?
- Crocheting.
- Kid Crafts.
- Knitting.
- Painting.
- Photography.
- Scrapbooking.
- Sewing.
When is a good age to start crafting?
Children can start making crafts as early as 9-10 months old. Learning the textures and coloring and painting and using playdough.
What is difference between art and craft?
What are the best crafts to make and sell?
- Glass Pebble Magnets.
- Children’s Headbands.
- Palette Clock.
- Decorative Champagne Flutes.
- DIY Lace Bowls.
- Flower Crowns.
- Pallet Coasters.
CraftyThinking is actively working towards raising the quality of life for every child. We strive for all children, regardless of race, color, or circumstances to achieve their full potential. Our Mission is to make it possible using Arts and Crafts.
- Arts & Crafts develops imaginations and encourages self-expression. Become creative and enhances your ability to innovate.
- Boosts self-esteem and can instill a real sense of pride and achievement. Promotes feelings of relaxation and a sense of calm.
- Art encourages creativity and imaginative thinking, two skills that are increasingly linked with long-term professional success. Art forces people to engage in out of the box thinking and can help them hone their creative problem-solving skills.
