We are very excited to now offer SenseAbilities New Writing Slope Slant Board which has been developed in house with input from our Occupational Therapist and is Made in Melbourne Australia by a local small business. The 4.5mm acrylic slant board has 380 mm x 300 mm of usable surface, with the actual board measuring 397 mm and it comes with two leg lengths allowing you to choose either 12° or 18° degrees of angle depending upon the support required. The legs are removable making the board flat for super easy storage and comes to you in a zippered pouch to keep it safe and to keep the pieces together. There’s also an optional 2 mm clear overlay that can be used with the board to allow tracing and a range of other clever uses.
Why use a slant board?
When we write on a flat surface we have to slouch forward to reach the paper and to engage our eyes with our writing. Bringing the paper up on an angled surface assists all children and adults to achieve a more upright posture. This is particularly important for people with reduced stability within their shoulders and core muscles or those with low muscle tone as it provides the ergonomic positioning necessary to achieve greater fine motor control, and reduces the energy expended during handwriting activities.
In order to move the fingers with the speed and control necessary for mature and legible handwriting the wrist needs to be positioned in extension giving the fingers their fullest range of movement and the thumb needs to be flexed to allow for an open thumb/index web space. Writing on an angled surface promotes this positioning and if used during early writing development may also reduce the risk of poor habits forming in relation to pencil grasps as it reinforces these underlying developmental hand skills necessary to support mature pencil grasp.
Having an angled surface also assists in raising any written instructions or pictures closer to the eyes for easier visual tracking and focus, important both from the perspective of visual processing but also again to improve posture when reading or looking at the material.
Why this slant board?
In addition to providing all of the standard features of a slant board, with an Occupational Therapist in the mix when designing, we have considered how we can bring more functional elements into our particular design. As we’ve mentioned above you have the option of two different angles allowing you to reduce the level of support provided as a child’s skills improve and you can store it flat which is a true bonus in a home and classroom environment compared to many other slant boards.
We have also chosen to make the boards out of white acrylic rather than the usual clear so that you can use it directly as a writing surface with white board markers and as a bonus we have created a clear acrylic overlay board that can be attached allowing you to place paper under the overlay to use the clear acrylic piece as a tracing surface, again using white board markers. Saves you loads of paper, particularly when children or adults are at the stage of wanting to trace simple designs or are exploring early pre-writing shapes or early letter formation where they may only use a piece of paper for a few marks and letters.
We think our Slant Board offers more features than you’ll find elsewhere.
You can also then get creative in how you use this combination. For example you can use the white acrylic slant board to write the steps required to complete a craft or multi step learning activity and then cover these with the clear acrylic overlay so that can be kept safe from smudging or allow the kids to cross off the steps without destroying the instruction underneath if they need to return to that step at a later time. You could also place the days schedule or a task list for a common activity like tidying a bedroom under the overlay allowing the to be crossed off on each occasion without destroying the original sheet. I’m sure all of you parents, teachers and therapists will come up with lots of other great ideas!
The board comes with in two versions:
- The standard version comes in a white acrylic and includes the board and two legs.
- The deluxe version comes in a white acrylic and includes the board, two legs and a clear overlay board, together with a set of multi coloured whiteboard markers and a whiteboard eraser.
