Meeting the Just-Right Challenge leads to an Adaptive Response = Success!

Kareen Robbins
Apr 11
5 min read

A just-right challenge is when an activity is adapted so that it is not too difficult or feels unachievable, but not too easy that it’s not beneficial. Use a person's existing strengths and abilities to tailor interventions to create opportunities for skill development. This may also be the type of sensory input, the intensity and duration of the sensory input as well as the complexity of motor movements. When a child meets a just-right challenge, they achieve a new skill. This new skill is called an adaptive response. This success will lead to positive outcomes for participation, achievement, self-esteem, and confidence.

The concept of the just-right challenge provides occupational therapy practitioners a means to convey the complexity of devising therapeutic opportunities for the clients they treat. It also offers occupational scientists a means to develop theory and build science. Establishing a just-right challenge concerns the critical practice dilemma of how to address a client’s perception that they cannot participate in an activity or that the activity is too difficult to try. Identification of the just-right challenge engages a client by skillfully combining an understanding of the uniqueness of that individual (including their likes, dislikes, interests, abilities, values, environment, etc.) and the particular difficulty they are facing, with recognition of the next achievable step in gaining skills for that person (Ayres, 1972a; Burke, 1977; Rogers, 1982; Yerxa, 1990, 1998). The just-right challenge is designed to be sufficiently difficult to require some persistence but also to motivate the client and ensure they succeed. The actual practice of clinically implementing a just-right challenge involves an individualized occupational analysis to select or adapt activities to engage a client for maximal participation. (Kuhaneck, et al., 2024)

An adaptive response is goal-directed and purposeful. It is a behavior that enables the individual to meet the “just right challenge and learn something new. This new learning will produce new forms of feedback and sensory input. (Ayres, 1985). An adaptive response may produce more organized and complex motor movements, sensory tolerance, emotional regulation, or behavioral response. The goal of an adaptive response is not just completing the activity but also improving neurological organization.

Practical Sensory Integration Intervention Application

1. Goal: Improve body awareness and balance through vestibular input and postural control activity of placing bean bags into a specified target on a swing.

X Too Easy: The child sits passively on a platform swing

X Too Hard: Prone on a hammock/cocoon swing and reaching for

objects while rotating and spinning at a fast speed.

+ Just Right Challenge: Sitting on a platform swing or prone on a

hammock/cocoon swing and reaching for bean bags to throw in a

specified area (Hula hoop or bucket, etc.) while moving in a linear,

horizontal pattern.

Possible Adaptive Responses

• Maintains postural control and Balance

• Successfully aims and connects the bean bag into the specified area

• Able to adjust force and direction on one’s body, and the bean bag to

place in the area

Activity Adaptations and Grading

• Speed of swing- Slow to Fast

• Direction of Movement- Linear to Rotational

• Positioning- Prone (lying on stomach), sitting, kneeling

2. Goal: Improve visual-motor and postural control through vestibular and proprioceptive activity of completing a puzzle with a scooter board.

X Too Easy: The child sits at a desk and completes a 3-piece form puzzle

X Too Hard: The child sits on the scooter board and moves around a

large room (long distance) to retrieve 24 puzzle pieces, one at a time

(possible increased fatigue) and then completes the free-standing

puzzle (too complex)

+ Just Right Challenge: The child is prone on a scooter board. They

propel around a smaller space to retrieve a puzzle piece and then

place it in a 9-piece form puzzle. They will continue until the puzzle is

completed.

Possible Adaptive Responses

• Maintains prone extension to improve postural control

• Completes the puzzle

• Combines visual, vestibular, and proprioception input into one

activity, thus improving neurological connections.

Activity Adaptations and Grading

• Complexity of the puzzle: form board puzzles to free-standing

puzzles, number of pieces

• Positioning- Prone, sitting, kneeling on the scooter board

3. Goal: Improve tactile discrimination and praxis (motor planning) through finding objects in a sensory bin

X Too Easy: The locates and grasps large visible items in a rice bucket

and places the items next to them.

X Too Hard: The child attempts to locate small, tiny Legos in a rice bin

and is asked to assemble a car with the Legos found.

+ Just Right Challenge: The child locates items with mixed textures

and sizes. The child places the items by color into matching-colored

containers.

Possible Adaptive Responses

Able to locate all items and place them in the correct color containers.
Improve tactile discrimination skills

Activity Adaptations and Grading

• Occlude vision with sunglasses, eyes closed, or a folder held over the

sensory bin.

• Use smaller items or items that are close to the bin contents (rice,

corn, etc)

• Use items to assemble or plan a constructional activity

4. Goal: Improve language through vestibular input while sequencing letters of the alphabet while bouncing on a therapy ball.

X Too Easy: The child is asked to sit on a chair and repeat the letters of the alphabet one at a time after the therapist says the letter. Therapist “A” Child “A”, Therapist “B” Child “B”, etc.

X Too Hard: The child bounces on the therapy ball and is asked to cite the alphabet from memory.

+ Just Right Challenge: With the therapist sitting in front of the child, the child will bounce on the ball and recite the alphabet with visual cues of letters on flashcards.

Possible Adaptive Responses

• Verbalizes and completes the alphabet in sequence

• Coordinates motor movements of bouncing with visual input of the

flash cards and verbal language.

Activity Adaptations and Grading

• The child plays the therapist and will say the alphabet first for the

therapist to repeat.

• Upgrade bouncing on a therapy ball to rotatory spinning on a swing.

• The child will sequence and write the letters of the alphabet while

sitting on a therapy ball, ball chair, or wobble seat.

Evidence of an appropriate Just Right Challenge

• The child is engaged and appears to be challenged