Junior's Fire Truck,

Junior's favorite toy is a big fire truck with 3 nobs on the side which activate the lights, sound, and ladder. He has a fire truck that is switch adapted which he does enjoy but this one is his favorite and isn't one we can switch adapt(or at least not the ladder which he loves to play with). Junior is usually happy to play hand over hand with his toys but when it comes to his trucks he thinks he should be able to do it himself. We have dealt with many tears and lots of frustration not to mention several bruises(on his arms where he tries to push his arms into the truck to activate it).
I knew there had to be a way to allow him to at least activate some things on his truck and finally figured out something that works for Junior. It is super low tech and not at all pretty but it works and thats what counts.

The fire truck has 3 nobs on the side, each of them must be pulled down to activate.
We used some yarn a 3 sensory balls. I tied a piece of yarn to each nob and then to a ball.
For Junior to play with we placed the truck on a raised tray so that when he stiffens his arm to push the ball it will pull down on the nob. when Junior gets excited his tone when he pushes can be quite strong so I used a velcro strap to be sure the truck didn't flip off the tray. I also put a book on the back of the tray for even more stability when he realized he could do it himself and was really stiffening those arms.
I placed a ball in each of Junior's hands and pretty soon he realized that stiffening his arm made the truck turn on and I had one very happy kid on my hands.


I would love to hear others super low tech adaptions.