Pediatric occupational therapy helps children become more independent and confident in daily life by supporting them in developing the skills, techniques, and strategies they need to complete everyday activities and responsibilities.
Through personalized clinical sessions and guided at-home practice, your child can strengthen these abilities. A pediatric occupational therapist — a highly trained specialist — can create an evidence-informed, play-based treatment plan that empowers your child as they work toward their goals.
With pediatric occupational therapy, your child can make meaningful progress that helps them succeed in any experience they take part in, especially when it involves fine motor skills.
Fine Motor Skills and Why Children Need Them
Fine motor skills are small, exact movements that involve your child’s wrists, hands, and fingers or their ankles, feet, and toes to handle various activities, such as grasping objects, buttoning their clothes, or picking up objects with their toes.
For carrying out these skills with confidence and ease, your child needs to learn and refine the following abilities:
- Being aware of their body both in space and while making moves
- Using the right amount of muscle strength in their hands and feet for different actions
- Responding to sensations in their hands and feet that are related to activities being performed
- Planning and coordinating movements for day-to-day actions and tasks
- Controlling their muscle movements with precision for more complex activities
Fine motor skills are important for your child’s growth because these calculated abilities enable your child to engage in and experience many aspects of life — ranging from playing with friends to form meaningful relationships to achieving educational goals to build a successful future.
Here are examples of fine motor skills:
- Eating with spoons, forks, and knives
- Flossing and brushing teeth
- Using a writing utensil or keyboard to express thoughts and complete homework
- Playing a musical instrument, like a piano or guitar
- Brushing and washing hair
- Twisting doorknobs to open doors
- Doing precise footwork for activities like soccer or ballet
Common Fine Motor Milestones to Watch for
From infancy into adolescence, your child is actively discovering and refining what they can do at a pace unique to them. These exciting achievements are called milestones — flexible markers that help you track your child’s development.
As your child grows toward independence, here are several fine motor milestones they will achieve along the way with a rough estimate as to when. Remember, each child develops skills at their own unique pace so treat these simply as guidelines:
- Opening up hands — by 3 months
- Using one hand to hold small toys or objects — by 6 months
- Transferring objects from one hand to the other — by 9 months
- Pointing to people or things around them — by 12 months
- Putting toys or objects in containers — by 18 months
- Turning pages one at a time while looking at books — by 2 years
- Using a fork during mealtimes — by 3 years
- Cutting simple shapes with scissors — by 4 years
- Dressing and undressing themselves — by 5 years
Therapeutic Methods Used to Strengthen Fine Motor Skills
As your child goes through pediatric occupational therapy, they work closely with a pediatric occupational therapist — a skilled healthcare provider who identifies needs through careful assessments and creates individualized treatment plans to help your child reach their goals.
With personalized therapy sessions, supplemental homework, and adaptive care, your child can learn to confidently and independently handle daily activities involving fine motor skills.
To support your child in building fine motor skills, their pediatric occupational therapist may use a variety of therapeutic approaches to strengthen these abilities both in the clinic and at home. Here are some of the most common methods:
- Hand and Muscle Strengthening Exercises: By playing with materials like putty or objects like squeezing toys, your child can increase muscle strength needed for various actions, like grasping, pulling, or manipulating objects
- Sensory-Based Play and Exploration: By interacting with things like sand, textured toys, or balance pods, your child can improve how quickly and accurately they understand and respond to sensations, like knowing how firmly to hold and press a pencil or how to position their feet and toes to stay balanced
- Coordination Tasks: By using both hands together or coordinating arms and legs during play, your child can develop awareness of their body’s position and movement while performing activities
- Motor Planning Activities: By learning to devise and follow step-by-step actions, your child can discover techniques to handle more complex tasks, such as brushing their teeth, writing or playing sports.
- Functional Fine Motor Practice: By engaging in hand and foot activities that develop coordination, muscle strength, and dexterity, your child can improve their ability to perform everyday tasks — such as dressing, using utensils, and doing precise footwork in sports or dance.
What Your Child Can Achieve Through Pediatric Occupational Therapy
As your child participates in their clinical sessions and completes home assignments, you will notice various improvements over time, such as:
- Greater awareness of how they are positioned in their environment and how they move, helping them use their hands or feet more efficiently during activities
- Stronger muscles and improved muscle engagement for tiny, exact movements
- Enhanced ability to interpret and respond to sensations in their hands and feet, leading to safer and more effective actions
- Improved planning and coordinating for handling activities, ranging from getting dressed to using eating utensils during mealtimes
- More precise control of muscle movements, enabling success in actions like writing, painting, or cutting shapes out of paper
Schedule a Free Screening with Tender Ones
If your child struggles with tasks that require precise hand or foot coordination, reach out to Tender ones Therapy Services (TOTS) for a free developmental screening, conducted in-clinic or online. Each screening takes only 15 to 30 minutes and is completely free. After the screening, you’ll receive valuable feedback about your child’s development and next steps.
To book your free screening appointment, call TOTS at (700) 904-6009 or reach out online.