Trying to get a strong finger pinch

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Most of the kids that I work with are able to get a correct grasp on tongs or tweezers so that we can work on strengthening those fingers and hands. Sometimes though you run into a youngster whose muscles are so weak and they pull in the wrong way that it makes it much harder to work on strengthening  while using the correct grasp.

I can get them to use the correct grasp while I am directly working with them, but the moment I turn away, they are back to the old funky way of holding the tongs. I really want them to be able to work on strengthening when I am not sitting right next to them, so I created a weird attachment to go onto the tongs and block the movement that I don’t want.

I tried different things, such as a pencil grip on the tongs etc, but it wasn’t big enough to block the unwanted movement, and the thumb wasn’t affected by it at all. I had to resort to making my own solution since I couldn’t find something on the market that would work.

I am sure that it may not block it all of the time, but it does seem to block the movement most of the time. It is a heart shaped silicone grip that slides onto the tweezers. It kind of goes into the web space to block the extreme flexion of the thumb MP joint and help facilitate some flexion of the thumb IP joint. I call it the thumb tip grip for tongs.

I had to make a mold of the clay version that I created so that I could make it in silicone, so I am able to make more of them if you want to try it out with your kids and see if it works for them. You can find them in the store.