Who is this useful for?
Parents/caregivers
This is one of the simple but very effective materials we use in therapy sessions, especially for children with visual impairments and developmental needs. The beauty of this tool is that it can be made using locally available materials, making it affordable and accessible for parents and caregivers.
To make a coloured cloth, we start with a plain white fabric. The white background is important because it reflects light well and allows colours to stand out clearly. We then add different colours using locally available dyes or paints. Common colours we recommend are yellow, green, and red, but caregivers can use any bright colours they can access.
Once the cloth is prepared, it becomes a powerful tool for visual stimulation. When used with a light source, especially in a room with low lighting, the colours become more vivid and attractive to the child. For example:
- When light passes through the yellow section, the child sees a yellow glow
- When it passes through the red section, the light appears red
This variation helps the child to notice, track, and respond to visual changes.
We use this cloth in different ways:
- Visual tracking: Moving the light across the cloth encourages the child to follow it with their eyes or head
- Head and neck control: As the child follows the light, they gradually improve their movement and control
- Attention and concentration: The changing colours help children who struggle with focus to stay engaged
- Emotional regulation: The soft, moving light can be calming and help children settle
It can also be positioned in different setups:
- Behind the cloth with light shining through
- On a table or standing frame to attract the child’s attention
- In sitting or standing positions to encourage participation and posture
Additionally, this tool supports motor development, as children may reach, turn, or adjust their bodies in response to the visual stimulus.
Most importantly, this activity should always be accompanied by parental involvement and warmth. When caregivers engage with the child during the session, it increases the child’s interest, comfort, and overall progress.
In summary, this locally made coloured cloth is a versatile, low-cost, and highly effective therapy tool that supports visual, motor, and emotional development during home-based therapy sessions.
Descriptive Narrative for making colored cloth for children with deafblindness and complex disabilities.
Narrator: This has been done by our parents
Visual Description: A man wearing hospital scrubs (Occupational Therapist) holding a white cloth with different color paints on it – Red, Yellow, and Green
Narrator: We usually do these things using local materials. All these materials, these parents can access easily.
Visual Description: There are two mothers kneeling on the ground with painting brushes and colored paint shading/painting the white cloth that seats flat on the ground
Narrator: So, in our sensory room, we have sensory light which helps children with visual impairments.
Visual Description: The occupational therapists talking while holding the white cloth that has been painted with bright colors by the parents/caregivers
Narrator: The sensory stimulation, now using the local materials, we improvise using the white cloth. As we saw the parents doing them, the white cloth and the paint with different colours
Visual Description: Birds in the background twitter while the narrator continues to hold the colored piece of cloth that is zoomed in closer to the screen
Narrator: Here we are having yellow, green, and red. So, we advised them to use more than three colors, if you can access them
Visual Description:
Narrator: We use the white cloth with different colors. Now this one, we are using it for visual stimulation. Because children with visual impairment can use it
Visual Description: Narrator lifts the cloth up
Narrator: So, we usually use this with light, first of all. We can have a torch. We can use it in a room with low light so that it can be effective.
Visual Description: Narrator picks out his phone from his pocket, turns on flash light
Narrator: If we switch on our torch like this, we pass it behind this cloth.
Visual Description: Narrator turns on flash light on his phone
Narrator: So passing it on this cloth with different colors. Now the child in front perceives it as having different colors.
Visual Description: Narrator gets help from another hand to hold one end of the cloth so he can torch behind it
Narrator: When you come to yellow, the light that comes out is kind of yellow. Then when you come to red, the lights out is red
Visual Description: Directly flashes the light to the yellow painted spot and then red
Narrator: So we do it in a room with low light. So this has a relevance that it helps when you are moving your light this side it helps the child to move the head along the light direction.
Visual Description: Only the colored cloth shows on the whole screen with a flash light behind it
Narrator: So, those who have neck control, they can use it. Poor neck control, they can use it so that they gain the neck control.
Visual description: Narrator continues to talk while holding the colored cloth up.
Narrator: So, we can use it for visual stimulation and also for other pursposes, like neck motor strengthening
Visual description: Narrator talks while holding the phone flash light on one hand and the colored cloth on the other hand
Narrator: You put the light this side and this other side.
Visual description: Narrator talking
Narrator: And, we are having those children who are attention seekers. So if we use this, it can also help in concentration and attention enhancing. So if a child is able to look at it, moving this side, moving this side. It also helps then regulate their emotions in a different way.
Visual Description: Narrator holds up the colored cloth and moves head showing one end to another.
Narrator: So, we use it for several purposes. Besides visual stimulation, we can use it on a table or on a standing frame table. Where you can lay it on top of the table so that it decorates the child’s device, either a seat or a standing frame
Visual Description: Narrator goes ahead to straighten both his hands and puts the cloth on those of his hands like laying a cloth on a flat surface.
Narrator: If it’s a seat then the child will gain that interest to be able to sit in the seat with ease and interest. So we accompany it with parental love so that the child gains the interest through out the session as we are doing the home therapy.
Visual Description: Hands of mothers/ caregivers painting the white cloth with green paint. Final clip of the narrator from a distance holding up the colored cloth.