Beyond Fun: How the CONNETIX Ball Run Supports Sensory and Neurodiverse Play

By Michelle Lee

The CONNETIX Ball Run is a versatile tool that provides meaningful sensory experiences for neurodiverse children and those with sensory needs. Through engaging activities and creative setups, the Ball Run can be used to support the development of key sensory skills in a fun, interactive way. In this post, we’ll explore how the CONNETIX Ball Run enhances play through sight, sound, and the proprioceptive and vestibular senses, offering children a well-rounded sensory experience that goes beyond traditional play.

Sight

The Ball Run’s colour options cater for differing sensory needs, including pastel shades for calming and soothing effects and brighter rainbow tones for stimulation, which offer ways to regulate sensory input depending on each child’s unique needs. The consistent shapes, colours and behaviour may provide comfort and structure in play for neurodiverse children who thrive on routine and consistency.

The CONNETIX Ball Run features clear tubes that promote visual tracking, which is the ability to focus and follow a moving target without moving the head. This is an essential skill, helping children complete everyday tasks such as reading, writing, drawing and cutting.

By arranging the Ball Run in different formats, we can help children practice tracking balls along vertical, horizontal, diagonal and circular planes. A long track can encourage eye movements across the midline, a critical skill for developing strong coordination between the eyes.

Alternatively, short tracks where the ball runs quickly through the structure can encourage the development of saccades – rapid jerky eye movements that shift the line of sight from one point to another, allowing us to quickly and accurately move our focus from one location to another.

Side-by-side tracks that run alongside each other support children to develop visual skills in interpreting depth. The complexity can be increased for skill development.

To strengthen visual perception, create visual prompts by printing photographs of different Ball Run structures that children can replicate. This helps strengthen visual-motor integration, which is the coordination between what children see and how they move their hands or bodies in response to that input.

Sound

In exploring sound with the CONNETIX Ball Run, children are offered a range of auditory experiences. The design of the Ball Run introduces subtle variations in sound that help children detect differences in pitch, tone and rhythm, enriching their auditory development. When the ball rolls along different pathways and makes contact at various points, each interaction creates a unique sound. For example, when magnets connect, they produce distinct “clacking” sounds, which can capture attention. Similarly, the inclusion of the staircase flute and the circular track may be preferred by children who seek auditory input. As the ball moves along the staircase it plays a percussive note like a musical instrument, while the circular track produces a long, steady, lulling sound, both heightening the sensory experience.

Proprioception

The CONNETIX Ball Run offers children a rich opportunity to develop proprioceptive skills, which help them understand where their body parts are positioned in space and how they move. Engaging with the Ball Run not only stimulates creativity but also requires motor planning as children learn how to build different structures. Each step of the process from picking up tiles to stacking and joining them – encourages postural control and an awareness of the strength and pressure needed to manipulate each piece effectively, especially when constructing a taller structure.

To further support proprioceptive development, children can participate in activities that require them to move and reach in various directions. For instance, building a tower around themselves encourages whole-body movement, promoting rotation, reaching up high and squatting down. Building vertically against a wall or on a tabletop can also be a great activity for developing spatial awareness and proprioceptive feedback as children stretch and adjust to reach higher levels.

The CONNETIX Ball Run also allows for dynamic standing activities, like tandem walking, which fosters balance and postural control. By setting up a path with two long, straight tracks, children can walk between them as if on a balance beam, stepping one foot in front of the other in the direction of the rolling ball. This simple yet effective exercise helps children practice maintaining a stable position while moving, further strengthening their proprioceptive awareness in a fun and engaging way.

Vestibular

The CONNETIX Ball Run provides a fantastic platform for children to engage their vestibular system, which is essential for balance, posture and spatial orientation. The various movements involved in building, reaching and adjusting pieces of the Ball Run stimulate the inner ear, supporting the development of balance and coordination.

This play encourages children to use both sides of their body in coordination – known as bilateral movements, which enhances their ability to sequence and integrate actions smoothly. For example, children use symmetrical bilateral coordination when they align and press tiles together with both hands and alternate their hands when adjusting parts of the structure. Building with the Ball Run also promotes the coordination of the dominant hand, which leads the building process, while the supporting hand provides stability and balance, strengthening bilateral integration.

Additionally, playing with the CONNETIX Ball Run supports “crossing the midline,” an important skill where children reach across the imaginary line that divides the body in half. Crossing the midline fosters brain connectivity and coordination, as it requires both hemispheres of the brain to work together. Whether reaching across their body to place a tile or retrieving a ball from the opposite side, children build spatial awareness, balance and posture – all fundamental aspects of the vestibular system.

Through these dynamic, playful movements, the Ball Run offers a holistic sensory experience that is both engaging and beneficial for children’s development. The CONNETIX Ball Run provides so much opportunity to celebrate the diversity of sensory experiences and to enhance sensory-based skills.

Michelle Lee

Michelle Lee has a background in occupational therapy and special education, previously supporting neurodiverse children and adolescents in school-based, home-based and clinical settings in individual and group therapy. Michelle has enjoyed working with parents and educators to find practical, engaging play-based solutions to support development, needs and interests of their children and students. Michelle is a proud mum of two and is currently on maternity leave, soon to welcome her third child to the family. In her spare time she enjoys pilates, reading and photography.

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