Painting All By Myself

A friend had sent me an article about helping your child find a way to independently do artwork no matter what their disability. Some kids use their feet and some hold a brush in their mouth. Well it suddenly hit me that Junior uses his head switch for toys and his computer so why not use his head for painting(one of those duh, why did I not think of this years ago moments). I put a couple holes in a length of elastic and some velcro on the ends then we put it around Junior's head. The hard part was the brush itself, it needed to be long enough so Junior was not getting his face in the paint. We ended up taking the insides out of a marker then sticking a paint brush into one end a a length of flexible plastic tubing into the other.

Junior was turning his head to either side to move the brush, I was not helping. He also would stop and holler for me to get him a new color. I was so excited watching him(yes the tears were rolling), especially when I gave him a new color and he moved the brush to the other side of the paper to use it.



Junior loves doing art projects but for the most part they are all hand over hand. He doesn't mind that and still has a blast. Today though he was more proud than I have ever seen him of something he has made. When he was all finished he just sat and looked at it and would then bust out in a grin.