A child needs precise fine motor skills to be able to use their arms, hands and fingers for play, the activities of daily living and school. But perhaps your child is struggling with managing utensils for eating, fastenings for clothing, and participating in small motor activities within the classroom such as handwriting, coloring and cutting. In fact, your child may have been recommended for occupational therapy evaluation and treatment by a teacher. They may observe that your child does not appear to be as skillful as same age peers in their management of classroom tools such as scissors, pencils and crayons, or may be avoiding tabletop activities altogether.

Occupational therapists have a full understanding of developmentally appropriate fine motor skills. In order to determine what is interfering with your child’s acquisition of age appropriate fine motor skills, and what treatment might benefit your child, Pediatric Potentials therapists will evaluate your child. Depending on your child’s age and development, we may consider whether your child:

• Avoids fine motor activities
• Is slow in completing tasks
• Fatigues rapidly or complains of pain in hand or neck during tabletop activities
• Has difficulty with drawing, coloring, tracing
• Performs these activities quickly and result is usually sloppy
• Has a problem holding pencil. Grasp may be lose, tight and/or awkward
• Printing is too dark, light, large and or small
• Does not seem to have a dominant hand, switches hands frequently
• Has poor sitting posture--leans into desk, leans on arms, fidgets, head close to page or writing surface
• Wraps feet around desk chairs, tips chair
• Has difficulty with classroom tools, especially scissors, writing implements, puzzle and/or glue
• Has difficulty managing fastening, eating utensils, and other daily living tools
• Has difficulty requesting help yet frequently needs help to organize constructional activities
• Knocks into other children's work
• Is a space "invader" in work stations
• Shifts body rather than rotating across body midline

If one or more of these “red flag” issues are getting in the way of your child’s enjoyment or progress in typical settings, we need to address them.