In these tough times, a Northwest
Ohio couple is striking out with a new idea, hoping
to score big in the classroom.
Createable Learning Concepts' products
are for preschool children learning how to cut
and trace. The products, called Cuttables and
Traceables, are the brain child of long-time occupational
therapist Elisabeth Wharton.
In her more than 20 years in Toledo
Public Schools, she found special needs children
had a difficult time with basic skills like cutting
and tracing. Wharton was determined to create
something to help.
"I wanted something with the
hand on the outside for tracing, because there's
nothing in the catalogs. I've been doing this
for years, and I want something to help them cut,"
said Wharton.
Createable Learning
Concepts package fun and learning
The owners of Createable Learning
Concepts are a therapist and an engineer by trade.
They're now business owners too.
A simple idea they had to help children
work on motor skills has now gone national. The
educational tools the children are working with
are rolling off the presses at Plastic Technologies
in Holland.
The big, colorful shapes help children
learn to trace and cut. The products were developed
by Liz and Randy Wharton.
Randy says, "It's been rewarding
to see this going from just an idea, a sketch on
paper, to actually seeing packages going out the
door."
The Whartons worked with the Regional
Growth Partnership. Vice president Tasha Hussain
Black told us, "Their goal is to keep the manufacturing
here in northwest Ohio. That aligns with the RGP's
goals as well."
Plastic Technologies has developed
packaging for some of the most recognizable products
on store shelves, like Coke and Colgate Palmolive.
But now they make thousands of educational tools,
too!
While Createable Learning Concepts
is not creating a lot of jobs, it is bringing new
work to existing businesses like Plastic Technologies
and plenty of smiles to children's faces.
Plastic
Technologies Helps Createable Learning Concepts Launch
Tracing, Cutting Tools For Special-Needs Children
Learning how to trace and cut shapes
can be a challenge for many preschoolers-even more
so for those with developmental and physical impairments.
Patent-pending Traceables and Cuttables
from Createable Learning Concepts, LLC, Toledo, Ohio,
now offer a colorful and easy-to-use path for success.
Traceables enable kids to trace an entire
shape without having to pause to go around their wrist.
Cuttables secure the paper for cutting via two matching
shapes held together by magnets.
Special needs children in northern Ohio
have already reaped the benefits. Feedback from students,
parents and teachers has been encouraging...
Cuttables
and Traceables, New Aids to Teach Basic Cutting and
Tracing Skills
Elisabeth A. Wharton, MOTR/L
As an occupational therapist in a preschool
environment, I work with many special needs children
to help them function at their highest level. Some
of my childrens’ problems include fine and perceptual
motor deficits, autism, blindness and cerebral palsy.
Learning shapes is a pre-math and pre-writing fundamental
skill and is very important in a child’s cognitive
development. The tracing and cutting of shapes lays
the foundation for higher learning. But sometimes,
teaching tracing and cutting skills can be challenging.
With tighter and tighter budgets, we
frequently find ourselves in school systems looking
for creative ways to develop aids for the children
that will help them develop their skills. Tools such
as glued together lay-ups of shapes can create templates
the children may use as guides to develop cutting
skills, but these never have a very long life when
faced with a determined pair of scissors. Tracing
aids frequently are solid shapes that the children
have to hold while they trace around, and at some
point, the hand holding the shape will always be in
the way. For some children, this obstacle is difficult
to overcome. Tracing aids are frequently stencils,
generally of thin material, and the child’s marker
tends to slip over the edge, possibly ruining the
drawing in their eyes and thereby creating frustration.
But I always worked with what was available to assist
my children… until I met Alex....
In the last eight months, I’ve seen
an idea go from a concept to reality in a relatively
short period of time. During this time, I’ve met a
number of people who have had wonderful ideas of their
own, but who told me that they just didn’t know how
to take an idea to reality and get it into others’
hands. Hopefully, this article will provide some insight
into how a process worked for me and enable others
to learn how they, too, can get their products to
market.
As occupational therapists we are always
being asked to find creative ways to solve basic issues.
We need to solve obstacles that confront our patients
to enable them to complete a task independently, for
our goal as occupational therapists is to allow an
individual to function at their highest level. The
majority of therapists are creative in a variety of
ways. We are always calling upon that right brain
side of ourselves to find a simple way for our patient
to perform an activity by themselves. The technique
must be easy to use and one the individual would want
to use. This latter part is very important. We
can design many tools that may assist an individual,
but the individual must enjoy using it as well as
finding it useful. I have worked as an occupational
therapist for over 20 years in a variety of different
settings; inpatient acute care, outpatient, rehabilitation,
long term care and currently in schools. Working as
a preschool and grade school therapist, one area of
concern with the children I assist is fine and perceptual
motor development...
In the last eight months, I've seen
an idea go from concept to reality in a relatively
short period of time. I've also met a number of people
who have had wonderful ideas of their own, but who
told me that they just didn't know how to get an idea
into others' hands. Maybe I can help them.
Working as a preschool and grade school
therapist in the public school system, I serve a variety
of children with different diagnoses including autism,
cerebral palsy, stroke, blindness or decreased vision,
sensory processing disorder, apraxia and fine- and
perceptual-motor deficits. Fine- and perceptual-motor
skills are needed to draw and cut shapes...
Patent-pending
learning tool helps kids get a firmer grip on life
What do you get when an occupational
therapist brainstorms with a nuclear engineer?
If you're a child with a disability,
you get a chance at a better future.
Elisabeth Wharton, an occupational therapist
for the Toledo Public Schools, wanted to help her
pupils develop very basic skills. She asked husband
Randy – trained to study and solve problems – for
some ideas.
"Some of her kids had problems
with gross motor skills, they couldn't do things like
other kids because their hands got in the way,"
Randy says...
When you have an idea, run with it.
That’s what occupational therapist and inventor Elisabeth
Wharton did when she came up with products to help
special needs and typical preschool children develop
their motor and visual spatial-perceptual skills.
“These children are learning basic geometry,
coloring, labeling and what shapes are,” says Wharton.
“It’s pre-math and pre-science, and it also helps
with developing pre-writing skills, language, and
fine-motor coordination, too.”
With 20 years of experience as an Occupational
Therapist and more than 16 years teaching children
in Toledo Public Schools, Wharton has seen a lot of
children through the integral early stages of development
and education. Over the years, she noticed a lack
of tools, support, and resources to help special needs
children with basic motor skills and elementary activities,
such as cutting and tracing. “I really don’t know
why no one came up with this idea sooner,” she says...
