Packet #50

Looking for a fun but challenging exercise that targets multiple cognitive skills? Look no further! In this exercise, help your clients catch all the ladybugs in the scene using their fingers or a writing utensil of their choice while practicing executive functioning, processing speed, object recognition, and fine motor skills.

This exercise primarily targets concentration, working memory, and executive functioning skills. These cognitive skills are heavily used when we are problem solving. Because your client must use some degree of trial and error, they must remember which attempts were successful as well as which ones were not. They must then devise strategies that help them remember the category of each drawer and what words correspond to each category. We use these skills when we have to organize items in our home in a way that makes them accessible to us and presentable.

Using strategic planning, reasoning, and cognitive flexibility, your client must try to decipher how to arrive at a given solution using the given numbers, given operators, as well as the results of their steps to arrive at a specific solution. This exercise highly targets executive functioning, but also targets working memory by way of requiring your client to remember which numbers and operators they have used and keep track of unsuccessful attempts so as to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Your client must develop and implement strategies for effective planning while also practicing how to effectively solve problems using some degree of trial and error.

This exercise is designed to target executive functioning – specifically planning and inhibition. Your client must learn to examine a set of information available to them, the problem at hand, and create a mental plan of how they will attempt to solve it. Rushed or unplanned actions will cause your client to not solve the problem efficiently. This exercise carries over to daily life skills such as booking appointments, taking inventory of needed groceries and household goods to not buy items already in stock, and remembering the steps needed to get out of an assisted moving device such as a wheelchair without falling.