Hickies Shoe Laces

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Not sure if anyone has already made a post about this (the search function isn't working on my iPad), but people with children with fine motors difficulties which make yo difficult to do laces could consider these.

I've got three pairs myself and find them very useful (though for purposes of looking neat I would suggest subtle colour bands or the dot colour on top being mixed because of the method of tightening them).

They might need someone else to put them in, but after that feet and be slipped in and out.

I'm also not sure they'd be tight enough for young kids, but probably useful once it gets to the difficult-to-find-Velcro stage.

They come in lots more colours than this.

I find them better fitting in two pairs of my shoes (trainers and roller skates)than the third (canvas shoes) but I'm not sure why. Probably eyehole distance. I found that I didn't need to use a whole pack for each shoe - three held my trainers just fine but they didn't look right to me so I put more on.
Just thought I'd share.

My son uses these. He really wanted a certain pair of sneakers, but they had laces and he is nowhere near being able to tie his shoes. So, I bought him these. They are tight enough for him. They work really well.

These look good. How adjustable are they?

We are using Lock Laces and they are great, too.

Thanks for sharing this.

These look good. How adjustable are they?

We are using Lock Laces and they are great, too.

Thanks for sharing this.

They have tutorials online showing different ways to put them on your shoes depending on the width of your foot. Once they are in the shoes, they just stay closed and the shoes become slip on shoes. I was worried, at first, that they would make it hard for my kid to get his shoes on, but they expand as he slips his feet in and it's very easy. He has a lot of sensory issues around socks/ shoes, and these don't bother him.

We use synch bands... and I mean literally we, because I started using them too. Very happy with them, and excellent customer service, too.

We had the ones Triathletes use. It seemed more "cool" when my son had to explain his choice of laces.

Keeping track of all the options is great; so many spectrum kids have this problem!

My son has since gotten comfortable tying laces the normal way.

We use the Lock Laces. Is there a specific age range that aspies/autistic kids seem to hit the lacing milestone? We bagged this b/c we have so many other things to work on and there seemed little immediate practical need given the options out there.

At some point we should revisit it, but I am not sure if there is an age range or at least was wondering what the other foundational skills for this would be.

I just wanted to chip in to the conversation about laces... my son really struggled with this for a while and finally I decided to just back off... it was SO frustrating for him. He is okay with a lot of fine-motor stuff, but his frustration tolerance is VERY low... so just the process of learning all the steps and executing them properly (which is tough for ANY kid learning this skill) was just too much for him. I put the laced shoes away for over a year and bought him more velcro-closure shoes. He wasn't self-conscious about the velcro closures (he's 8, so it's not like he's the only kid with those).

I'm home-schooling him this year, so that opened up more opportunities for me to deal with this-- for one, I didn't have the "oh crap we're late" thing every morning that doesn't allow time for frustrating shoe issues. For another, I was able to do stuff like have "shoe tying clinic" for an entire week. And that's what I finally did. We spent part of each day just working on shoelaces. I showed him visual instructions, which helped a lot. I also showed him a TED talk about how 50% of people are tying their laces "wrong". It was geeky and he enjoyed it. He was motivated to learn how to do it the "right" way. I gave him points for each attempt, and bonus points when he started to tie them successfully. It only took about a week and he was good-to-go. And it was SO worth it, because he got a HUGE boost of self-confidence from it. He was SO proud to finally be able to do it... more than I realized. I think it must have really bothered him, more than he was letting on, that it was so frustrating for him. It was like a weight off him to just get it over with and finally be able to do it. He doesn't even wear his lace-up shoes every day, but knowing that he now CAN, if he wants to, is something he's very proud of. I don't think it would have happened, though, if we hadn't done the intense "shoelace clinic" thing. Whatever works for your kid-- sticker chart, points, game time, etc... it's worth using their currency and just set aside a week to really focus on it, even if it means ignoring other tasks/schoolwork etc. I didn't personally think it was such a huge deal whether he figured it out or not (there are so many options for shoes now) but with hindsight, I think it was important for HIM. I think not being able to do it made him feel like a dummy.