Learning To “Do”

“Fine motor skills” is a term for something we all do all the time…use our hands. Being able to use their hands means more to your child than simply being able to pick things up and put them down. The fine motor skills your child develops in their first year will enable them to interact with their world… to create, to explore, and to “do” all kinds of things. By the time they are two or three years old, they will be grasping crayons and markers to scribble, holding the handles of a push toy or riding toy, and learning to grip and release a ball in their earliest games of “catch.” To use their hands, your baby will have to develop hand-eye coordination and also the ability to reach, grasp, hold, and manipulate things.

• By the time most infants are about five months old, they are able to judge whether an object is within their reach.
• At six months, most babies’ fingers will still act as one. When they grasp something, it is with a full-handed raking motion.
• During the second half of the first year, your child will begin to show a preference for one hand over the other. They will gradually learn to move their fingers and thumbs individually, and will begin using their fingers more and more to explore things…from the faces of parents and family to any accessible electrical outlet! Gradually they will learn to use their thumb and forefinger to pick up small objects. Achieving this ‘pincer grasp’ is probably the most significant milestone in small motor skill development. Your child will begin to use their index finger to point at objects in order to get your attention and “tell” you something without using words.
• By about nine months, many children can guide their hands smoothly to an object after glancing at it only briefly. At about this age, many children also learn to transfer an object from one hand to the other.

Increasingly complex “doing”

It’s interesting to observe the progression babies make in learning to manipulate objects. First, they simply hold it, then they rotate it in their hands, then they shake it. They will learn to hold an object with one hand before they are able to hold it with two. Gradually, they are able to make the objects they hold part of a deliberate plan as they experiment with stacking blocks, or fitting a toy into a shape box.

By twelve months…

Most toddlers are able to adjust their fingers and thumbs into positions that are appropriate to the size and the shape of the object they are trying to grasp. As a toddler’s reaching and grasping skills become better coordinated and more precise, they are able to achieve independence in many ways; drinking from a cup, eating with a spoon, picking up small bits of food from their highchair table, taking small snack foods out of a container, and learning to put on, and take off, some or all of their clothes.

If you have any questions about your child’s development of their fine motor skills, an occupational therapist can assess whether your child’s current fine motor development requires any early intervention to ensure that they are able to continue to develop their skills to their best of their ability.

Written by Alannah Santomartino, Occupational Therapist.