Tying shoes

[Jessie]

Does your child with Ds tie their own shoes? If so, what age were they when they mastered it enough to do on their own?



Jessie

[Connie]

Jessie,

Good Question!!!

And How/When do you get started?

Connie

[updowns]

Sarah at 14 can't tie her shoelaces.

Stella

[Debbie]

My mother kept at it until I eventually was able to do it on my own. This was not easy by any means. She said she thought it would take me a long time to do this. I personally wanted to learn how because I figured other girls my age were tying their own shoes. It just took time. I now can tie my shoes very well but there are times when I do need help in other area's. I don't know the age I finally was able to do this. I know I was either in Headstart or first grade.

[CC]

Christopher is 13 and honestly he and his OT have been working on this for some time now. We have worked with him at home but in all honestly not as much as we should with the tying. For us I see this as one of those things just one day BAM he will do, probably on the day I decided to just give up, KWIM He is famous for doing that, just one day do something we worked on forever and then one day he does it as if he has been doing his whole life go figure. In the mean time he just slips off his sneakers and slips his foot back in without ever untying them. Works for him, LOLOL

CC

[laurasnowbird]

Jessie,

We're a long way from the whole shoe-tying thing, but I saved this for when we get there, LOL! I can't remember where I got it, but it seemed like a great idea!

DOWN SYNDROME NEWS VOL. 20 NO.9 PAGE 121
Steps to Shoe Tying Success By Meg Egan
Cheryl Beahn figured her 7-year-old son, Ryan, would wear Velcro shoes for a long time. Ryan has mental retardation, but since he had early trouble with motor skills, and for a time had difficulty just picking things up, Beahn never expected her son would arrive home from school knowing how to tie his shoes. But one day he walked in grinning, plopped himself down on the floor, stuck one hand behind his back, and proceeded to tie his sneaker by himself. Thanks to a simple shoe-tying method developed by Kim Mickley, COTA, Ryan has been relishing this bit of independence ever since. "Ryan-he gets so ecstatic. Tongue-tied," his mother said. "This is a real thrill. He's showing some independence... He's being just like his brother and sister. He's doing what they do. Little things that others can do that he can't-he notices."

In the last year Mickley has taught 15 children with varying degrees of mental retardation and autism to tie their shoes. Before then, she averaged one or two students a year. "In the past I would teach children the way I tie my shoes, telling them to take whatever lace was on top and pull in under-those sorts of instructions," she said. "That's so hard for figure-ground perception." Mickley is an employee of Colonial Northampton Intermediate Unit Number 20 in Easton, PA, which provides special education services to 13 school districts in a three-county area. Her task-oriented method breaks shoe-tying into several specific steps, each of which a child begins by using a dominant hand- "the hand you hold your pencil with," Mickley tells them. She frequently works with students at a desk or on the floor, one shoe off and facing in the same direction as the bare foot, with the laces hanging down, one on either side of the shoe. Mickley first asks students to raise their dominant hands and place their non-dominant hands behind their backs to reinforce that these are the hands they ought to use to begin each step. She doesn't refer to hands as being "right" or "left," since many of her students don't understand the distinction. Students use the dominant hand to pick up the lace on the dominant side and cross it over the shoe. With the same hand they cross the lace on the opposite side over to make an "X". "The emphasis of this is that you learn each step and you don't go on to the next one until you learn that step," Mickley said. "We would practice this (and each of the subsequent steps) at least five times, until the child could do it without me talking them through it." With the non-dominant hand still behind their backs, students next slide the dominant side lace, put it under the "X" and grab with the dominant hand. They use the non-dominant hand to grab the other lace, and then pull both sides tight. Mickley again practices the step at least five times, then has the students use the dominant hand to make a medium-sized loop with the lace on the dominant side, and hold it against the shoe with the thumb and forefinger, tail hanging down. After practicing making loops on the dominant side, students use the non-dominant hand to pick up the other lace and wrap it around behind the loop toward themselves: clockwise. For the next step she has them make a fist with the non-dominant hand, and use that thumb to push the lace through the circle and away from their bodies, then hold it there. Once again, both steps require practice. Next, the dominant hand drops its loop and grabs the lace resting in the non-dominant thumb and forefinger. This, too, requires practice. Finally, the non-dominant hand grabs the other loop with its thumb and forefinger, and students pull both loops sideways. Mickley suggested practicing all the steps beginning at number three-making the first loop-several times with the shoe off the foot, resting on the floor or desk. Then students must practice tying with the shoe on the foot. Mastering this may take additional practice since laces tend to shorten once students put their shoes on. As a final step, Mickley reviews how to untie the laces without knotting them: by pulling one of the tails, not the loops. Mickley often encounters students who have learned to tie their shoes using the "rabbit ear method," in which they make two loops, cross one over and under the other, then pull them into a bow. She said that although they may successfully tie their shoes this way, she always teaches these students her method. "The rabbit ear method, obviously that's not appropriate for adults," she said. "You don't see adults tie that way. So eventually they'll have to learn the other way." Mickley sees a lot of students with high-level autism, many of whom have problems with motor planning. One, a 10-year-old whom she treated for five years, was one of the only kids in his class who couldn't tie his shoes-and until she developed her dominant-hand method, she didn't foresee him ever learning how. "It was just, basically, impossible to teach him how (using other methods)," she said. "There was no way he could remember all the steps," Using the new method, the boy learned in two 45-minute sessions.

Hope this helps! Hugs! Laura

[Jessie]

Interesting. The reason I had asked is because this is one of those weird, stereotypical misconceptions that Brian has - he was told that people with Ds cannot learn to tie their own shoes. I was like, what? huh? I don't think that's right!

Jason is starting on step 3 based on Ms. Snowbird's article . . . so I guess he's headed in the right direction. We'll just keep plugging away at it!

BTW CC - Jason does that too - we can work and work at something to the point it feels like it's never going to happen and then one day - BAM! - he does it as if it was the most natural thing for him to do.

Thanks.

Jessie

[cmedrano99]

Courtney is 12yr... she showed intrest in the last 6months and learned to tie her own shoes. So I have to say in the last 2months, she been tying her own shoes...but downside.. she loves the facts shoe strings can be laced! So now learning to lace the shoe and then tie the laces..

Hang in there... most kids learn and some just can't get it.

I do not expect Dayton to do it...but mabey later in life.. who knows... not that big of deal long as velcro and streact strings are around.

[mommygwen]

This morning I spent over ten minutes watching my son ( age 13) tie and untie his sneakers, if it had been a school day I would have stopped the untying; but I just watched today. He really enjoys something about dangly things and jiggled his shoe laces ever since I can remember.
Greg learned to tie his shoes at about age 10. We spent a lot of time working on shoe laces because he loved them so, especially untied and jiggling. The jiggling drove me crazy so I would take the shoes away and give them back only if he put them on and left them tied. But, of course he would untie them after awhile.....
I was able to let him take the lead about practicing tying his shoe laces. Since he had them in his hand so often, I would guide his fingers to tie them. When he wanted to stop I didn't push, because it was never long before he had the laces in his hand again and I could show him again how to tie them.

[cindylou]

Jessie-
Kaylee learned when she was in 1st or 2nd grade. I absolutely think it is something Jason can learn--and it will make him feel so good when he accomplishes it. This can be addressed on his IEP--and the OT at your school district can spend one on one time teaching him this. That is how Kaylee learned--I cannot even remember the technique--but we had a specific goal on her IEP for her to learn this.

Keep us posted!