Serving Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee
Cutting and scissor skills are an important part of school and are needed for many crafts, worksheets, and projects. Below, you’ll find a guide to help teach your child how to use scissors safely and efficiently. Where and When to Start? A great place to start is snipping and cutting play-doh. This can be introduced […]
Activities with your child at home can help improve overall hand strength and handwriting. Here are a few ideas to get started: Problems with spacing: 1. Encourage child to leave a spaghetti size space in between lines and a meatball size space between words 2. Teach the child to place their index finger of non-dominant […]
Think about how we develop our bigger (gross) skills before we can hone in on our smaller (finer) ones. As children become more coordinated with gross motor skills and bigger movements, such as crawling, walking, and climbing, the next step involves fine-tuning smaller movements. These smaller, finer movements can include holding a pencil, grasping small […]
This is a common question that is often asked of a pediatric OT when working with kids ages birth to 6 years of age. To answer this question let’s first look at some red flags that may indicate a concern in a child’s grasp development and then discuss the typical sequence of grasp development in […]
Connect the dots, dot stamp markers, dot stickers, and so many other activities can be used to help improve fine motor skills, visual motor skills, and many other developmental areas. Here are some of my favorite dot related tools to use during occupational therapy treatment sessions. Connect the Dots This activity can be used to […]
As a pediatric occupational therapist, playdough has become the Swiss Army knife in my “toolbox” of occupational therapy equipment. I keep multiple containers of it in each of my therapy bags as well as my therapy spaces. When I see it on sale, I buy it in bulk so often that my husband has begun […]
Handwriting and a proper pencil grasp go hand in hand and can often be a lot more complex than what one would imagine. Pencil grip development is a common concern for many parents, teachers and therapists as this can lead to difficulty with handwriting tasks in the future. There are several different reasons why a […]
Fine motor skills are one’s ability to control the use of the small muscles in the hands and fingers. Fine motor development is an important part of the toddler and childhood years to help the child be more independent in day-to-day tasks. Think about zipping a coat, buttoning pants, unlocking a door, writing your name, […]