Every person uses their fine motor skills every day to pick up their glasses, change the channel on the television, and get ready in the morning. Fine Motor Skills are the skills used when you move your hand to do an activity. They involve the small muscles of the hand, and are necessary for performing most of the tasks in life. There are a lot of body movements that can be used to help in the development of fine motor skills, and some of these include weight bearing on the hands, postural control and shoulder stability, and muscle strength development. There are also many little parts and nuances of fine motor skills, some of which are; development of the arches of the hands, the thumb and its webspace, separation of the 2 sides of the hand which helps with in-hand manipulation, bilateral integration, and the development of hand and finger strength.
In-hand manipulation is the ability to move objects around in your hand, and there are three components.
- Translation: The ability to move an object from the palm of the hand to the finger tips and back to the palm.
- Shift: The linear movement of an object between the fingers such as moving your fingers up and down the shaft of a pencil.
- Rotation: The movement of an object with the finger around one or more of it’s axis, such as when you spin a pencil around with your fingers.
Handwriting is a big part of fine motor skills, as well as Scissor Skills. You can also read about the fine motor skills that are specifically needed and used for handwriting.
You can check out a list of development of milestones for fine motor control as well. This is just a guide to help you see if there are any problems.
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scanning manipulatives
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