About tactile-based training

The tactile sense – where we gather information by feeling and touching things – works fundamentally differently from our other dominant senses, sight and hearing. So when we developour brains through the tactile sense, we have the opportunity to purposefully and systematically develop fundamental cognitive skills – strengthening our thinking, learning and problem solving.

The training is particularly relevant for children and young people with learning and development difficulties, but is also relevant for children in general – who are growing up in a visual and digitally dominated culture.

The primary focus of the method and materials is to build and strengthen fundamental cognitive prerequisites that lead to the development of thinking. FTL develops the child’s knowledge of basic properties of things in the world, and strengthen the child’s fundamental ability to understand the world through conceptual understanding and language – and integrate this understanding into the child’s perception, thinking, learning and problem solving. Understanding of a number of basic properties such as shape, size (length, height, thickness), position, spacing, distance, pattern, etc. is thus built into the training material.

Strengths of FTL training

The Processes

Information gathering

It becomes clear – also to the child – that information gathering is an active process

Slowing down

Cognitive processes are automatically slowed down.

Visible thought processes

It is easier to see cognitive processes at work – and to identify impaired functioning.

The interaction

Contact

The training provides optimal opportunities to simultaneously interact with the child, observe the child’s cognitive processes and guide the child’s thinking and problem solving.

Openness

The child naturally experiences a need for guidance and mediation – and finds it easier to accept support.

Intentional learning

The trainee becomes more easily aware of his/her own problem-solving strategies.

The thinking

Concepts & Languages

The importance of conceptual knowledge and language skills for thinking becomes clear – and easy to target for training.

Top-down & Bottom-up

You can focus on bottom-up and top-down processes

Logical Thinking

It is possible to work in a focused way with inductive and deductive thought processes.

The trainer

Optimizing interventions

The impact of the trainer’s guidance, support and mediation becomes evident.

Precision in Guiding

The trainer becomes aware of the need for precision and detail in his/her guidance.

Cognitive Assessment

The trainer can directly see the cognitive challenges that need to be targeted.