Count
One small interruption is enough to lose your place in the count and have to start over from one. Keeping the numbers in order takes focus, and the visual support below offers a visible row to lean on.
♀Count on fingers
A happy person counts on their fingers with the numbers one to five next to the hand.
About this visual support
Counting rests entirely on holding an order in your head, one, two, three, without losing the thread. The trouble is that the order lives in working memory, and the slightest sound, question or stray thought can knock it loose. Suddenly you are unsure whether you said seven or eight, and the whole sequence has to start over.
Visual support moves the order out of the head and onto a surface the child can see. When the numbers or the objects to be counted sit in a row, there is always a place to return to after an interruption. The child can point to where they are right now, which both holds focus and makes it possible to carry on rather than restart.
One concrete tip: have the child touch each thing while counting, one button, one finger, one picture at a time. Pairing the number with a physical touch anchors the count in the body, so an interruption does not erase everything, it just pauses it.
In Routined you can set counting exercises as steps and pair a picture with a quantity. You can try the app for fourteen days at no cost.