Fine Motor Skills Blog Series #2: Why you should be involved

In recent years therapists are noting an increase in fine motor skill delay. This is manifesting itself in schools as children with poor academics, negative behaviors in classrooms and avoidance of paperwork such as homework and in classroom activities.

As an occupational therapist, I see children who have already been negatively affected by a lack of fine motor skills. In my clinical practice, I see mainly 8 to 11 year old boys who can not hold a pencil properly, who have difficulty printing due to letter formation, spacing and neatness. Often, these children have no diagnosis and therefore are not red flagged and "fall through the cracks". Often, it is the parent who determines that there is an issue and does research to find out that their child's fine motor skills may be the problem.

I finally got frustrated enough at not being able to get this message out that I developed a 1 day course for teachers, teaching assistants, parents and allied health professionals to teach them what they needed to know about fine motor skills. My course is called HandWorks: Fine Motor Skills Training.

Getting Fine Motor Skills Training to the masses
After developing this course and delivering it within my region I realized that this issue was bigger than I thought. The feedback from participants was excellent and they wanted more and continued to say that this should be general knowledge for anyone working with children. That's when I decided to put this training online......and what a project this has been. The good news is that fine motor skills training will be available on line soon through http://www.finemotorskillsforchildren.com/ . Keep an eye out for our launch October end 2009.

Karey

Fine Motor Skills...What are they and why are they so important?

Fine motor skills are defined as the coordination of the fingers and thumb. These skills allow us to engage every day in our self care, productivity and leisure activities. The only time you're not using your hands....well, is likely when you're watching television. Even then, you may be using the remote control, eating and making notes on your child's homework! So really, sleeping would be my next example of when your fine motor skills are "at rest"!

So why should you care about fine motor skills?

Firstly the children in your life need you to care as you may be the only person who picks up on what may be a fine motor skill delay. If you are reading this blog, you may already have a child in mind that may be having difficulty. My best advice is to start as young as possible to promote the development of fine motor skills instead of waiting to see if a delay will present itself. If a fine motor delay is left, a child's future can be affected including their academics as well as job options as an adult.

This is why I developed HandWorks, Fine Motor Skills Training and I'll talk more about the content of this training in later blogs. This website will be launched end of October 2009 and will offer fine motor skill webinars and tools to aid in fine motor skill development.

Keep a watch out for my monthly blogs for the latest research, tips, assessment tools and fine motor skill resources.

Karey