FM.B.22 PULLS A PEG FROM A PEGBOARD

Now your child can learn to cope with resistance when he takes things. A peg in a hole cannot be raked off a table-top, but must be pulled up and out.

How to Assess

Materials: A large wooden peg in a board. (It can be plastic, but we have found that plastic toys of this kind often have a tight fit. Look for a toy that allows free movement of the peg in and out while still requiring a little lift – such as a toy truck or train with holes and pegs or peg-shaped dolls on the back.)

Method: Show the child how the pegs come out, and then direct him to ‘take’. Give 3 tries.

Score plus if the child lifts the peg out of the hole, in one of the three tries.

How to Teach

You can teach this by starting with very easy materials and gradually introducing harder ones. Remember that the listing action is quite new to your child.

Useful materials include small cups (for example from a nesting cup set) and 10 cm sections of dowelling, spoons, pegboards and/or peg-in-hole toys.

  1. Takes a stick or spoon from a cup. Using the materials described above, direct your child to take the stick from the cup. Guide him, if necessary, to lift the stick up. Hold the cup firmly so that the child cannot take the stick by pulling it towards himself and tipping the cup over.
  2. Takes a loosely fitting peg from a board or peg-in-hole toy. Find pegs which will fit in the holes a little more loosely than those designed for the toy. Proceed as above.
  3. Takes a peg from a board or peg-in-hole toy, as described in the main objective. Proceed as above.

Playtime and Round-the-house Activities

Provide your child with toys of this kind at playtime. You will find many ways to improvise variations. Around the house, your child could pull a toothbrush the last couple of centimetres out of the toothbrush rack, take a spoon from a cup or pull a stick out of the sandpit.

Remembering and Extending

When your child has got the idea, present him with deeper holes and more tightly fitting pegs. ‘Peggy Boards’, which are quite tight fitting, could be tried now. A baby food tin makes a deeper cup. We have made much use of the tall, narrow, clear plastic cylinders in which packets of stock cubes are sold – these require a very definite upward movement.