Motor Skills Ep 5: Fine Motor Skills

Today we unravel the fine motor progression children go through to move from banging toys to expertly tying shoelaces. We break down key concepts  such as dexterity, in-hand manipulation, and motor planning elements. This episode is all about appreciating and understanding how these skills enable children to engage in their daily lives.

Recognizing and addressing fine motor skill challenges early on can make a world of difference. We look at practical strategies for supporting children in tasks like buttoning shirts, tying shoelaces, and handling lunchtime packets. Our aim is to help build children’s confidence and skills, ensuring they feel capable and ready to take on everyday activities. Tune in for a wealth of tips and resources that parents and teachers won’t want to miss!

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DISCLAIMER:
Whilst I will always make evert effort to share correct information as at the date of the podcast, research is constantly happening and as a profession we learn more everyday. One therapist may have a different way of doing things to another, and every child's needs are unique. By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others Consult your child's paediatrician or therapist for any recommendations for your child.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:11

Hello everyone and welcome back to Belzo Tee Quarter. We actually are already up to our final episode in our motor skills season, and in today's episode we're going to be digging into fine motor skills and what that means for occupation, engagement, what that means in terms of a development perspective and just what's involved within our fine motor skills skills season, where we talked about our motor skills being a way for us as individuals to interact and engage with objects around us, with people around us, and find ways to interact with our world. It's the same thing for our fine motor development and our fine motor skills. It's all about how we can figure out ways to touch different objects, reach out, hold things. As I get a little bit older and my skills get a little bit more precise and my fine motor skills become a little bit more refined, that's when we can then do some slightly more complex things. Maybe I start to do buttons, maybe I do my cutlery, because in the background I've got that bilateral coordination where I'm doing both hands doing different tasks, and then, as we get even older, we get our handwriting and our typing, we get things like shoelaces, and so we get more and more complex movements that we're able to complete, because we continue to define some of those fine motor skills as such, and so I want you to think about this in terms of thinking about a child's development.

Speaker 1 1:50

And so when we have a baby, for example not to six months, sort of age-ish and you see these babies and they might reach out for something, but not really be able to grab it and kind of flick it towards them instead of actually grabbing it with their fingers, they might rake it towards their body and then squash it against their body to hold it, and then they might develop that a little bit more and then start to hold things in what we'd call a palmer grasp, where I'm using the palm of my hand against the object and then my fingers are wrapping around it to stabilize it. And once they get really good at that, we see them start to bring that object out, and so I start to use just my fingers to pick up, and so you can see these slight little progressions and changes in how I can hold and use my fingers and use my hands to interact with an object around me. Then we start to look at things like we might begin to pinch something. Initially I might pinch it with three or four fingers and eventually build it down to what's called that pincer grip or pincer grasp, which is where I'm using my pointer finger and my thumb to pick up an object in isolation, without needing to use my other fingers. Then we start to see them start to use both hands together. Then we start to see them start to use both hands together.

Speaker 1 3:04

Maybe we're clapping, maybe we're banging blocks together, making a lot of noise, tipping things out of containers, and then again we refine it a bit more and we start to see kids that are then involved in using a tool for a purpose. And so, instead of just it's a little bit when we start to bang things, but this idea that, instead of just it's a little bit when we start to bang things, but this idea that instead of just picking something up, I'm using it to do something else, so I might pick up a crayon and use the crayon to draw I'm starting to build this idea of tool use as I interact with the world. And then we see, your pencil grasp will change because again, when you see a child first pick up a pencil, it will be more of that palmer grasp my pencil against my palm and all of my fingers wrapped around and eventually, as I become more confident and I start to build some of those fine motor dexterity and a bit more precision, we then see that turn into a tripod grasp for some people. For some people find handwriting and we'll get into this in a later season but, for example, I do not hold my pencil in what would be called a tripod grasp. Mine is modified because I have some hyper flexibility in some of my joints and therefore that is what's comfortable for me. But what we see for the fine motor development is that we move from this palmer grasp into getting a functional grasp that is comfortable to write with the other.

Speaker 1 4:31

Like fine motor skills that we then see kids progress into would be things like using scissors, doing handwriting instead of just scribbling, starting to do buttons and shoelaces, and all of these then require that little bit more fine motor control and precision. So that's kind of the development of our fine motor skills and I want you to think about it as this idea of figuring out how to use our hands to interact with the world and how I can use my hands to achieve what I want, be it dressing, playing, eating, whatever the occupation is that we're doing. How can I use my hands to engage in that to get the outcome that I want? So what we're going to do a little bit now is I want to talk about some of those kind of buzzwords that you might hear around fine motor skills, kind of buzzwords that you might hear around fine motor skills. Give you a bit of an understanding of what they mean. But then we're going to get into the real nitty gritty of the important side of our fine motor skills and that is that occupation side. So some words that you might hear around our fine motor skills are things like dexterity, in-hand manipulation, fine motor control like dexterity, in-hand manipulation, fine motor control, strength, endurance. There's lots of different little buzzwords that go around with it and I thought we'd just break them down into what they are. So let's start with the ones we already know.

Speaker 1 5:56

We still need that awareness and planning. So we still need those components of motor planning to impact upon our fine motor skills. We still need that coordination. And when we talk about our hands, that coordination is that idea of being able to coordinate my fingers. So is it? Am I coordinating all of my fingers at the same time to do something? And if you look, put your hand in front of you and open your palm. If you bring all of your four fingers towards the bottom of your palm at the same time, well, that's coordinating all of those fingers to move at the same time. Or am I coordinating fingers in isolation and they're doing different jobs, in which case this would be something like if you're trying to hold lots in your hand or if you're trying to do buttons. These are the or shoelaces. Even when you're handwriting. You've got different fingers doing different things, different type of coordination.

Speaker 1 6:48

Now, muscle strength. The different little bit with muscle strength we look at our fine motor skills is we're not using our big muscles anymore. And what I mean by big muscles is we've got and if you think back to that first motor skills episode we talked about kind of having that strong core in that trunk, those branches through your strong shoulders and that stability through your shoulders and your arms, and now we're talking about the leaves and that control in your fingers. Now the difference is is these are not big muscle groups, these are smaller muscle groups and what we have is our intrinsic muscles in the hand, and what that means is it's the muscles that run up and around your fingers that support your fingers to be able to bend and extend or flex and extend. And then you have muscles around the base of your palm, and these are slightly bigger muscles, and so we think about muscle strength. It's about being able to use the strength of the fingers in the strength of the muscles in your fingers and the strength of the muscles in your palms, to coordinate the movements that you want. And so if we see kids that might have poor muscle strength, and that might be because you're watching them and they're really trying to push on something and they just can't get the strength to do it or they get tired really easily. So they start to do a fine motor activity and this is typically a play activity that has a fine motor component, but you notice that they just give up really quickly, their muscles get tired really quickly, and so then we can look at how we can help support that strength side of it, which we'll get into in a second. But that's what we talk about when we talk about the muscle strength associated with our fine motor skills.

Speaker 1 8:34

Then we have our manual dexterity, and this is when we talk about manual dexterity. It's all about kind of our precision in tasks and so our manual dexterity is how we group all of those different components together to then be able to execute the movement that I want to do. And it's about that precision in our fine motor skills and how we can coordinate my fingers in a very precise way or to the level of precision required for the task that I'm trying to do. So, for example, if I'm trying to just pick up an object, I could either pick up something with a pencil graph, so that's that pointer in that thumb, and that would be quite a precise way to pick it up. Now, truthfully, I can pick up something with a pencil graph, so that's that pointer in that thumb, and that would be quite a precise way to pick it up. Now, truthfully, I can pick up that same thing by putting my palm over, pulling my fingers in and keeping it locked in the middle of my hand Both ways to actually pick up, but one would be more precise and one we're using more manual dexterity to pick something up. And what's important is, there are some tasks, as we get older, that do require a higher level of manual dexterity to be successful or some other supports in place.

Speaker 1 9:55

And the last one that I want to talk about just quickly is something that you might have heard, which is called in-hand manipulation. Now, in-hand manipulation is all about the idea that if I have two or three things in my hand and my easiest way to explain it is if you have a couple of different coins in your hand that you don't need to put them all down to pick up the one that you want. You can roll them around in your fingers if, if they're stuck in your palm, you can use your fingers to bring them up to your fingertips without needing to put it down and pick it up between your fingertips. It's the same idea that if you pick up a crayon, for example, or if I have a pen or a pencil, I can pick it up and then I can swing it around in my hand, and I can move it around in my hand to get it to the position that I want to engage in writing. I very rarely pick up my pen ready for writing. I'd pick it up, and it's typically in the palm of my hand, and then I use my fingers to tuck them under over to then get to the position that I want. That's your in-hand manipulation. How can I manipulate an object within my hand without needing to put it down and pick it back up again.

Speaker 1 11:10

Now, the reality is is that all of these skills are important? Yes, they all blend together. Yes, but and I always love a good but but what is most important is looking at the so what and, as I said at the very start of this episode, we want to look at the so what in terms of occupation. What are we trying to do? Where is this then having an impact? Where is the difficulty? And it might be that the difficulty is due to some fine motor skills difficulties. That's not a problem, but when we look at helping, we want to make sure we're helping and making it make sense for the child as well.

Speaker 1 11:56

So, if you think of your child or a child in your class that you think may have some fine motor difficulties, I really challenge you to think about how you're seeing that. How do you know that they're having some fine motor difficulties? What are you actually seeing in terms of how they're engaging in these activities? Which are the ones, or which are the occupations that they're having difficulty with? Is it at playtime that they don't want to do the Lego and they get really frustrated around doing Lego and they can't do their buttons. Is it that you're noticing that they find shoelaces really tricky? Or maybe it's that when it's lunchtime and they're having to open packets, that's what's tricky, because these are the areas that we want to help the kid with.

Speaker 1 12:43

Kids are really really great. They're really really clever in knowing that something is hard, and so they'll typically try and avoid it if it is hard, and so that's when we want to make sure, instead of just saying, oh, we're making your hands strong, we're making your hands strong so that you can do this that you find tricky and it. Obviously this depends upon the age of the child. If you've got a toddler that's just playing, we can just help with to building in some more play activities that do have a fine motor component to it. But if you have someone that's in you know, year one, year two, when they have something that you know they find tricky, talk to them about it. You know, I know these buttons are tricky for you.

Speaker 1 13:25

So let's get our hands warmed up. Maybe we'll do some little hand gymnastics. First we're going to copy and we're going to see if we can touch our fingers, our fingertips together, so my pointer finger and my thumb and then my middle finger and my thumb, and then my ring finger and my thumb and I'm going to move all the way down and I'm going to come all the way back Because, if you think back to the episode last week, slowing down these movements helps with that motor planning component. Blowing down these movements helps with that motor planning component If we do some activities where we can just sit there and look at our hands and see what we can make our hands do. Little shadow puppets are fantastic for this, you know, where you use your hands to make different creatures in the shadow on the wall. Finger puppets also great for this, because it's playful and it's fun. But we're still looking at how can I isolate and move my fingers slightly differently, how can I give my brain extra practice of moving my fingers differently to then come back and make sure what we're doing is practicing the activity. And so it's this kind of seesaw and balancing of having enough just fun, fine motor games or games that have a fine motor component or activities that have a fine motor component and then making sure we actually practice the thing that is challenging, the activity that is challenging, so that we can break that down and help them feel confident in doing this, and so we're going to talk through some of these occupations now, and then we're going to wrap up this episode and it sounds like it might end up being a nice short, sweet one to finish out the season, but let's see how long we go.

Speaker 1 15:04

So, if we think about some of these occupations now, our fine motor skills impact on so much and that's the reality, because we use our hands to do so much on a day-to-day basis. I'll use my hands to type, to cook, to make food, to like make a sandwich and spread some butter and things. I'll use them to get dressed. Do my buttons, do my shoelace open keys, open doors with keys, I should say heaps? The list goes on and on and on. If you start to notice how much you actually use your hands for it's almost everything, and so then this is why we want to break down what's the occupation.

Speaker 1 15:43

When we think about kids, the biggest one is play and engagement in play. Do they like Legos? Do they like building towers? Do they like doing threading? Do they like scribbling and drawing? Do they like Play-Doh and squishing and mashing that and making different things out of Play-Doh, all of these play-based activities. And then we get into the scribbling and the handwriting, which we're not going to talk too much about today. I will do a separate season on handwriting. And then we have the self-care elements of dressing and buttons and zippers and shoelaces and all of that fun bits and pieces, and then we have some of those more school-based skills of handwriting I said, but using scissors, using paint brushes, as you get, using different bits of science equipment. So you can see there's lots of different things.

Speaker 1 16:38

And in terms of the so what, if you have one big takeaway from today, I want you to think of it as the balancing act that I said. So let's practice the activity itself and let's practice some different games. And so first we're going to break down a couple activities and I'm going to talk through a couple examples for you so you can start to hear some of the language that I might use and different ways you can approach a situation. So let's say, we're having difficulties with buttons and I'm finding buttons really tricky and you've, and you think that it might be because you've got some fine motor difficulties, because the fingers just tend to go everywhere and they're not quite doing the right job. So the first thing I would do is I'd talk about it. Okay.

Speaker 1 17:23

So what do we need to do? Let's make this plan, let's figure out what actually needs to happen. So I have this understanding. Does the button need to go from the back of the shirt to the front or does it go from the front and push down and ask these questions to your child, talk about it together and make it silly, you know, put it into the wrong hole, put it in an upside down and go oh no, that didn't work. Show your child making some mistakes and then figuring something else out. And then, once they have the plan and they understand what's happening, then we can get into the. Okay.

Speaker 1 17:56

So what hand is going to do what job? What hand am I going to use to hold the button? How many fingers am I going to use to hold the button? Okay, so I've got that figured out. Now does my other hand need to do anything? Oh, it should hold the shirt, okay. So now let's try that. And then you go okay.

Speaker 1 18:13

So it tried the shirt, but it didn't work. And I think it didn't work because the button twisted too much and it got a bit spun around and stuck. So can I hold the button in a different way, and this is where you might then model a different way to hold the button to then be able to go okay. Or, if I didn't push hard enough, okay. So how long do I need to keep pushing for this button? I need to keep pushing it till push, push, push. It's all the way through and I feel it slip away from under my finger. Or am I going to push it through just a little bit and catch it on the other side and pull it through? Both totally appropriate ways to do buttons.

Speaker 1 18:48

But you see how we can start to talk about it and be quite explicit in terms of what are my fingers doing? What do they have to do? Which fingers am I going to use to hold it? How am I going to hold it? How much do I have to push? It links back to bits of those motor planning, bits from last week, but also some of those bits around making sure I'm using my strength. And if you then notice that actually, at that point in time it's too strong and that your child or a child in your class can't push the button through, well, that's when we can go. We're going to flip to the other side of this balancing act and we're going to help build in some more activities in your day to help make your hand strong, so they can get stronger and stronger so that we can do your buttons by yourself. But we still need that bit of practice. So I understand the why. The why is so important. So that might be an example for buttons.

Speaker 1 19:43

Let's think of another one. Let's do one for lego. I love lego. So let's say, the child's having difficulty with Lego and they're trying to build a tower, but they're just using one hand and every time they try and push down on it, it keeps on slipping off and it's not working. Okay, what are we gonna do? What are you building over there? Oh, you're building a tower. Fantastic.

Speaker 1 20:08

How should we build this tower? Oh, we're gonna put them on top of each other. And then what do I have to do? Do I line it up like this, and I might misalign it deliberately, and then, if they can go, no, not like that, okay. Do I align it like this and I'll do something silly again? No, not like that, okay. Where does it go? Oh, I have to match the dots on top with the dots underneath, okay. And then, when I put it on top and I might use the palm of my hand and smash down on it. Oh, that didn't work. That broke the tower. That's okay, I can fix it quickly.

Speaker 1 20:40

Now let's have a look. What else could I try? And so we start to help them do this, thinking of what fingers, what hands can I use to build? Where can I put it? Where could it go? If it's a tricky one that I'm trying to open, where can I do I use my fingers, tips or my fingernails to get in, to split them apart a little bit? Or can I hold the tower in my hands and snap it like I'm trying to snap a twig? What's the best way to break the bit lego blocks, because that can typically be the hardest part of lego is actually breaking it back down once you've built it.

Speaker 1 21:15

So see how, in both of these examples, what we've done is within the activity, within the occupation that the child is wanting to do or finding tricky to do. That's when we can then break it down and have that slight focus on okay. So what are the fine motor movements that I need to do to complete this, so that we can help with a bit of that dexterity and help them start to figure out how can I use my hands to complete this activity. And so then we have the other side of our balancing act, and that is just looking at building in or having opportunities for your child or the children in your class to do fine motor activities throughout the day. Now, I'm sure teachers, you guys, are all over this. You do a really, really good job of building these in, but this just might be some other ideas or some different ways that we can look at things that you're already doing within your day that we can tweak a little bit, or some different fine motor activity ideas. Now, the truth is, if you jump on Google and you search fine motor activities for insert age group, you will find many, many, many, many, many different options, some that require a fair bit of prep and work and some that are relatively quick and easy, and so we're just going to talk through a couple today because, as I said, there are so many out there, and if you do ever have some difficulty finding some, there's a feature on the podcast where you can send me a text message, or you can message me on Instagram and I can point you in the direction of where you can find some. So what are some ones that you can do now?

Speaker 1 22:51

My favorite is getting the children involved in things that you do. So cooking, cooking is a great one. Cook with your child because then they can roll it out. They can help mix different bits and pieces. They can squish different bits of pieces. If you're doing cookies, you can use your fingers and push different patterns into the cookies. It's a great space to build lots and lots of fine motor skills and lots of other skills, but particularly lots and lots of fine motor skills. If you think about younger kids, peeling stickers and putting stickers on different things is a fantastic one for our fine motor skills.

Speaker 1 23:29

Stringing and threading and this does not mean you have to go out and get a threading kit you can use pasta and string. It can be as simple as that and you can make beautiful pasta necklaces. Or you can use um Cheerios they're really great too like little bits of cereal that you can string and put something through. You can be nice and creative with how you do it, but this idea of that threading part can be fantastic. Getting kids involved in washing with you doing pegs and pegs on and off the clothesline are fantastic to build some of that strength that we need because you've got to squeeze and put it back on. And for younger ages, using tongs are a great one. So maybe you can have them help with tongs in the kitchen or while you're cooking. They can have their own set of tongs and they can do their pretend cooking and move little pom-poms into a little cake tray and put it in the fake oven and see how you can make it nice and fun and playful. But they're still using those tongs and still building up some of those strengths and skills. And still building up some of those strengths and skills. But yeah, for older kids, washing and doing pegs, particularly if it's for lighter objects. So underwear is a great one, socks are a great one. As the objects get bigger and heavier, it's going to be harder to coordinate and complete. But the smaller ones fantastic Doing, as I said before, little finger puppets are a fantastic one Popping bubbles and seeing if they can pop it.

Speaker 1 24:55

You know if they're doing really well and you've noticed that they find it difficult to isolate different movements. Instead of whacking their hand to pop it, can they pop it with your pointer finger? Can you pop it with your pinky finger? Can you pop it with both hands together so we can start to tweak these games, just to practice different movements. Doing puzzles are fantastic. Um, at whatever level the child is, and if you want to add an extra fine motor component to it, hide the puzzle pieces. Put the puzzle pieces in a container, if that's it. They're finding it tricky to open containers. Well, let's make it playful. And we're going to have to go on a scavenger hunt to find the puzzle pieces, to put them in, using a bit of theroparty and wrapping it around the puzzle pieces so they have to dig the puzzle piece out. Or burying puzzle pieces in kinetic sand so they have to dig to find these puzzle pieces before they can build the puzzle.

Speaker 1 25:52

Scissors and doing any sort of cutting is also a great one to build up some of that strength and some of that fine miter skills. Doing different pegs and peg boards also really good. And then, as we get older, we can look at things like doing origami using hole punches, using squirt bottles. So having them help with cleaning the windows fantastic one, you know, make a mess all over the windows, do some shaving foam fun and then get this a spray bottle, fill it with water or a bit of cleaning product and have them spray it down. Or if it's summertime and you've done some chalk painting outside or chalk drawing, I mean outside, get the spray bottle and use it to clean different things also Also really nice. And, as I said, the list can go on and on.

Speaker 1 26:35

But think about how you can just make those little tweaks to what you're already doing in your day to day to have those increased opportunities. And the biggest one is if they find it tricky and you know that they're going to find their buttons tricky, or whatever the occupation is allow a little bit of extra time so they can have that one attempt, maybe even two attempts, before you then have to step in because we have to get out of the house on time. All righty guys. That is it for our fine motor section. And if you think about some key takeaways, number one I want you to think about and being this kind of occupation focused, so that if we're thinking, instead of just saying we have fine motor difficulties or I'm concerned about my child's fine motor skills, which is totally valid, but I challenge you to think I'm concerned about my child's fine motor skills because they're finding these activities really, really tricky, because they're the activities that we want to work on. You also now know a little bit more about what goes into our fine motor skills, from that motor planning bit figuring out what hands need to do what, being able to use the right strength and doing those bits of in-hand manipulation.

Speaker 1 27:48

And, as always, my biggest, biggest takeaway, number number one is make it fun. Play is so important for kids and we want to be doing everything within play where possible. So even if we're practicing the task or we're practicing the occupation that they find challenging, make it silly, make it fun, make it engaging. If we're looking at different ways to build in different fine motor things instead of, oh, we're going to sit here and use some Play-Doh to make your hands strong, maybe we're going to become bakers and we're going to make some cookies, maybe we're going to be archaeologists and we've got Play-Doh on top of something and we have to dig down to find a bone or find something else, build, follow your child's interest, interest, but build in that element of fun so they don't even notice they're doing the hard work with their fingers and then at the end you can sit there and go wow, look at that, your fingers were so strong and you did that all by yourself without needing any help from me.

Speaker 1 28:51

All right, everyone. I hope you have a fantastic week that wraps up the end of our motor skills season, which is crazy. That is season two already done. Go follow me on Instagram and I'll let you know what our next season will be all about next week, and then we'll jump into that one in two weeks time. Have a great day, everyone. Chat soon. Bye, thank you.