Fine motor skills are important
both in child development and in special education.
Many times these skills are
overlooked in the race to higher intelligence.
But children develop in stages
and teaching skills of a higher stage will only create pseudo-skills without
real understanding.
Fine motor skills are tasks that
utilize the small muscles of the body like those in the fingers.
The fine motor skills involve the
small muscles of the body that enable such functions as writing, grasping small
object, and fastening clothing.
To be able to do all this, a
person needs strength, fine motor control and dexterity.
Weakness in fine motor skills can
affect a child’s ability to eat, write legibly, use a computer, turn pages in a
book, and perform personal care tasks such as dressing and grooming.
While many children don’t have
difficulties with gross motor skills (such as walking, running and jumping),
fine motor skills require more control and more precise movements of smaller
muscles.
Toddlers around a year of age are
usually able to perform fine motor skills like holding a cup, grasping a spoon,
picking up chunks of food and putting small objects into a larger container.
Usually at this age, there is not
much involvement of the thumb.
As a child gets closer to two
years of age, fine motor skills increases to include tasks like drawing with a
crayon, using a fork or a spoon with more precision and stacking small objects
like blocks.
Closer to three and four years of
age, children begin to master fine motor skills like zipping, snapping and
buttoning clothing and drawing and writing skills show marked improvements.
Fine motor skills are essential
precursors for many of the skills students need to complete academic skills.
Such as cutting with scissors,
writing, and keyboarding.
Since fine motor control is a
very important skill to master for writing, it is important to make sure your
child is continually improving those skills.
When you are working with your
child to develop fine motor skills you’ll want to build hand strength,
independent manipulation of both hands, and hand-eye coordination.
You can encourage your child’s
development in this area by offering plenty of opportunity to practice.
Also try to avoid doing things
that might hinder fine motor development, like feeding your child from a spoon
instead of letting him pick pieces of food off his a plate.
Allow your child to practice new
skills and better his dexterity as soon as he shows interest.
Good small muscle coordination
and fine motor skills help your child gain more independence.
There are many ways to develop
fine motor skills.
The following exercises were
created by Kichwa special education teachers from recycled material.
They are cheap to make but effective
to use.
By helping your child to practice
the activities in this article you can help your toddler, or bigger child, to sharpen her fine
motor skills.
