Thanks to Carol Hesch, a regular to this blog, cued me into this interesting visual motor app called Chalk Walk . Compatible with iPad only, this 2.99 app provides slightly different dynamics when working on visual motor skills.

Chalk Walk app guides the user through a sequence of pathway to different cities that lead to visual motor pathways of graded difficulty. One “city”has to be completed before you can go on to the next city, requiring completion of numerous separate chalk pathways.

One interesting component to this app is that it requires pinching your two fingers together to bring to dots together, then hold the two dots together to draw on the pathway. This image shows a bit of what that looks like:

After the two dots are brought together, the user can then draw a chalk line to follow a the animated charactor or object moving from left to right cross the screen in an unanticipated pathway.

This is an interesting task. Although I was almost always able to make a chalk line, there were times that my finger nail(s) limited the connectivity required on the capacitive screen. I also at times had difficulty seeing the animated object or charactor and the line it created as it moved forward (to the right) due to my right preferred hand covering it up (a lefty would have a definite advantage on this task!). Had the line I was following been a bit thicker it might be easier to follow. The lines get harder and more complex as you move to the next “city” with more curves and angles occuring more frequently.

Chalk Walk is a dynamic activity requiring maintenance of the pincer hold to make the line and constant motor planning and visual attention to observe where the line is being drawn ahead of you. Working on an easeled surface may help somewhat with being able to view and follow the animated objects pathway. Not for beginners, this app would be suited to primary aged students who can maintain a pincer grasp and have the control to change direction of drawing somewhat quickly. Users would also need to have fairly good somotosensory awareness of their hands and fingers to guide their hands on a pathway that is not always so visible.

Chalk Walk has been out a few months it appears. I did not have a chance to try this out with students, however you can find more information on it’s use with students on Your Therapy Source’s Blog, another blog for OT’s and PT’s.

Is this app appropriate for your students and your OT iTool Kit? Leave a comment and share your experience or thoughts about this app!

Carol