Strengthening Your Child’s Fine and Gross Motor Skills

If your child has motor difficulties and/or low muscle tone, there are a variety of ways to strengthen his skills, build muscle, and increase endurance without breaking your budget. My son has fine and gross motor delays, low muscle tone, and loose joints, as well as some sensory and vestibular issues. Through trial and error, recommendations from his occupational and physical therapists and a bit of common sense, we’ve found many ways to build therapeutic activities into his daily fun. As always, use caution when using small pieces with a very young child or one who tends to mouth objects.

For fine motor skills, some of the simplest and best activities are things you may already have at home. Play-doh, clay, or homemade salt dough is wonderful for building hand strength. Play-doh now comes in scented varieties which may appeal to the sensory-seeking child as well. As the child squeezes the clay or play-doh to soften it, the hand muscles get a good workout, and by pinching the clay and making tiny parts like ears and tails to add to their creations, the child is building fine motor skills.

Coloring books, puzzle books and crayons are great for hand-eye coordination and motor planning. Things like mazes and dot-to-dot puzzles are especially good for this. If your child has poor grasp, try getting the chunky crayons, or even the pyramid-shaped ones, which can be found at some teacher supply stores and online.

To develop handwriting skills, try using paper with raised lines. It looks like the traditional manuscript tablet with solid lines defining the top and bottom of the writing area and dashed lines in between, but the solid lines are raised slightly. This gives the child a tactile reference for where to make their letters. I’ve seen these tablets at various office supply stores. If grasp is an issue, try putting a pencil grip on the child’s pencil. The one that my son prefers is called the Grotto Grip, with ‘wings’ that help hold his fingers in place, but there are many different types. Pencil grips can be bought at discount stores, drug stores, and teacher supply stores. The Grotto Grip in particular can be found at some teacher supply stores and online at www.theraproducts.com.

Simple board games and card games are good for working on motor planning and fine motor skills as well. Games in which small pieces are moved around the board are great for motor planning especially, and shuffling and dealing cards are good fine motor activities.

Wikki Stix and pipe cleaners are fun and encourage creativity while exercising fine motor skills. Wikki Stix are simply wax coated lengths of string in bright colors that can be twisted together like pipe cleaners, or stuck to glossy paper to make pictures. Pipe cleaners can be found at any craft store, and Wikki Stix can be bought at toy stores, teacher supply stores, or online at www.wikkistix.com.

My son loves an activity called Spare Parts, which we bought online at www.theraproducts.com. It consists of a whole bunch of gummy ‘mutant’ body parts that can be stuck together to make all kinds of wacky creatures. It sounds pretty strange, but sticking and removing all the parts really works those fingers, and the creations that can be made are hilarious. If the parts get dirty or lose some of their stickiness, just wipe them with a damp cloth.

Colorforms are another old standby that are great for exercising little fingers and encouraging creative play. The vinyl stickers can be reused over and over and stuck just about anywhere without leaving sticky residue. They can be bought at most toy stores and some discount stores.

Pop beads are a favorite for building strength in the fingers. My son has some Pop Bead People that we found at Barnes and Noble; the beads came with a sturdy book about the different people that can be built, and the parts can be mixed and matched to make a nearly endless variety of funny people. The basic beads can be bought at www.theraproducts.com, and come in bright colors and different shapes, to link together and make all kinds of things.

Marble runs are another good fine motor activity. There are many different kinds, from huge elaborate ones that can cost hundreds of dollars, to smaller very inexpensive ones. I got a 200-plus piece set at Kmart for my son for under twenty dollars, and he plays with it almost every day. Putting the tracks together and taking them apart is excellent for fine motor skills.

One of our favorite games to play is Hullabaloo. A Cranium game, it helps develop listening skills along with gross motor skills and coordination. An upbeat voice in the game’s electronic unit instructs the children to move in different ways to get to the little mats you scatter around the floor. Kids have to listen carefully, then recognize the color or picture they need to find, then hop, spin, jump or dance to the right mat.

Easels and wall-mounted chalkboards or dry-erase boards are excellent for building arm and shoulder strength. Both of these can be pretty expensive, but a large piece of paper taped to the wall will work just as well.

The grocery store is a great place to work on gross motor skills. Let your child carry something heavy like a gallon of milk, a bag of apples, or even a pound of coffee, depending on the child’s abilities and strength. Some grocery stores provide child-sized carts, or you can bring one from home. Let your child fill it with different things and push it through the store. Many stores have floors tiled in alternating colors, and the child can jump from grey square to grey square, trying to skip over the white ones.

The park seems like just a fun place to hang out, but slides, climbing walls, and monkey bars are awesome tools for building gross motor skills, plus all the running and jumping kids do in the wide-open space helps build endurance. Swings are good for vestibular stimulation as well.

If you work out at home, let your child work out with you. He doesn’t have to follow the routine exactly, but anything that gets him moving is good. He can use inexpensive one pound weights, or even socks filled with beans or rice, to build arm strength as he exercises.

Therapy doesn’t have to be work, and your child’s whole life shouldn’t be orchestrated to be therapeutic. Having a child with special needs can be stressful, and knowing that many of the ‘just fun’ activities your child enjoys are helpful too, should put your mind at ease a little.

Reference:

• www.theraproducts.com