Articles for children's care, learning and development.
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Activities for children's early hand skills
The following details are from Derby City NHS Paediatric Therapy Team 2008 and
the excellent ideas they have to support children's earliest hand developement.
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Finger
Isolation
This skill is gained early on in a child’s development.
At 10 months old a child is able to isolate their index finger. Isolating
fingers in sequence is a skill that older children acquire but usually
before 5 years of age. Finger isolation is needed before other manipulation
skills can be gained and is essential for pincer grips. Sequencing finger
isolation is needed to enable a child to manage fastenings, play musical
instruments and use small items of equipment such as lego or thread beads.
° Your child should make a fist and then straighten one finger at
a time – beginning with the thumb. There are some good finger songs to encourage
this, ask your school or nursery if you don’t know any.
° Use finger puppets to encourage the use of one finger at a time.
° If your child is still having trouble, ‘hula hoop’ crisp can be
a good incentive! Ask him/her to outstretch one finger at a time and place
a hula hoop on it.
° Encourage your child to make a fist, then raise fingers one by
one to count.
° Circles. Ask your child to make circles on the pad of his/her
thumb with his/her index finger, and then try doing it with the other fingers.
Then, see if he/she can make a circular movement on the pad of the finger
using the tip of the thumb.
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° Introduce push button games ie. toy phones
° Trigger action toys such as water pistols also encourage finger
isolation.
Using Palmar Muscles
Palmar muscles help to pull the thumb to each of the fingers and also
help with the handling of objects using just one hand. Children learn to
manipulate objects in one hand from around 3 years, gradually refining this
skill until around 8 years.
° Ask him/her to crumple a whole sheet of paper in one hand – using
finger movements only. Start with lightweight paper like tissue paper, then
continue to stiffer paper. It’s a good way of using up junk mail!
° Make collage picture with paper your child has screwed up into
small balls.
° With just one hand, can your child turn a pencil around and around?
° Can he/she roll a marble between the tips of the fingers and thumb
– starting at the index finger and ending at the little finger?
° Is your child able to turn a coin around in the palm of the upturned
hand using the fingers and thumb (without cheating and turning the hand
over or using the other hand?!)
° Can your child spin a small spinning wheel that you get from a
Christmas cracker?
° Can they wind up a small wind-up toy?
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Push Pull of Fingers
This skill is needed for many complicated tasks such as neat writing,
fastening buttons, accurate release of small objects and sewing etc. and
begins to develop around 5 years of age. Palmar muscles are also used for
this skill.
° Ask you child to put the pad of each finger (in turn) to the pad
of the thumb to make a circle. Whilst keeping the pads n contact with each
other – bend them towards the palm, and then stretch them out again. Your
child should see the circle flatten as the fingers straighten. Get your child
to practice this until he/she can do it. The try the following activities.
° Can your child get pegs into a pegboard and make patterns? If so,
see how quickly they can get 10 pegs into the board. Encourage them to beat
their score in under a minute.
° You might try threading beads or sewing cards with your child. If
you use thick material for sewing, this will build up the strength in your
child’s hands too.
° Can your child play “flick football” with a piece of screwed up
paper or a sweet paper? Flick the ball past your opponent to score a goal!
° If your child has a money box, pushing coins in will help develop
push pull
movements.
° Connect 4 is also a good game for getting fingers moving!
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The rule of thumb is:
Make it fun
Make is Achievable
Help your child to succeed
Little and often is best
Offer rewards of special time (such as watch a favourite programme together
or walk the dog together) rather than just money rewards.
Time with your child is the best thing you can do to help them.
Developing Finger Grips
Pincer Grip
Pinch grip usually develop at around 12 months old and is gained by being
able to hold objects between the thumb and any of the fingers. Being able
to hold objects between the thumb and any of the fingers is important for
picking up small objects. Some children have limited control because they
bring the thumb to the side of their fingers and not the pad.
° Your child should make hoops with individual fingers. To do this,
he/she should keep the pads of one finger and thumb together and make the
shape of a hoop.
° Then keeping the pads together, he/she should push the finger and
thumb as straight as possible. This push pull is a skill required for activities
such as fastening and unfastening buttons.
° Ask your child to roll a ball of plasticine or play dough between
their finger
and thumb to make eyes for figures they are making.
° If your child likes raisins or small sweets, encourage them to pick
up one at a time with finger and thumb. They could even try to squash it
between their fingers!
° If passing a small object to your child, present it to them from
the index finger side of the hand so when they grasp, the other fingers are
excluded.
Tripod Grip
The tripod grip usually emerges around a child’s 3rd to 4th year. It uses
the thumb, index (first) and middle fingers. It is the most functional grasp
for gaining good pencil skills and is necessary for fastening buttons on
clothes etc.
Teaching your child to develop a good tripod grip and how to hold a pencil
correctly is one of the biggest favours you could do! The correct tripod
grip on a pencil allows the hand the largest range of movement, whilst using
as little exertion as possible. It will help your child develop their pencil
skills, and increase their fluidity of movement in their hand.
One way to teach the child to hold a pencil is:
Lay the pencil on the table pointing towards you.
Pinch the pencil in between thumb and index finger at the point end where
you want to hold it.
Lift the pencil and let it fall back into your web space while still holding
it
firmly with thumb and index.
Tuck your middle finger under the pencil so it rests firmly ready for
drawing!
Ask your child to hold an object with the whole hand or all the fingers
i.e. a pencil. Then encourage a tripod grip by asking him/her to hold their
ring and little fingers into the palm whilst the other fingers are doing
the work.
If your child is unable to do this, ask them to practice by holding a
rubber or small toy no bigger than 2cm x 1cm (children often like to hold
small toy animals) with the end two fingers and then trying to straighten
the others. Continue practicing until your child succeeds!
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Grip
Strength
General Hand Strength
• Ask your child to make hole-punch patterns on paper and card to improve
the strength of the hand muscles. The waste circles can be pasted onto paper
and turned into snow or little bugs etc. Or just ask him/her to help you
punch holes for any filing that you may be doing.
• Encourage your child to squeeze a rubber ball as hard as possible a few
times a day.
• Encourage your child to play with squeezy toys ie. A toy that talks
when squeezed or an animal that hops when a connected bulb is squeezed.
• Using a sponge and a measuring bowl, see how much your child can wring
out of the sponge into the bowl. Keep challenging him/her to beat the last
score.(NB best done under supervision from an adult who has first removed
excess dripping water!)
• Some children have problems opening their hand against resistance i.e.opening
scissors. If this is a problem for your child, then this may help: put a
thick elastic band around your child’s thumb and fingers and encourage them
to stretch out their hand as wide as possible. Trying to pick up marshmallows
or pieces of fruit may be good motivation!
Pinch Grip Strength
Often a weak pinch grip can make a child fumble with small objects. If
the following activities are difficult for your child then some regular practice
should help.
• Encourage pinching between the thumb and each separate finger, not just
the index finger.
• Give your child a peg to squeeze between the pad of his/her thumb and
first finger. Count how long they can keep the peg open. Get your child
to try again to beat their score. See if they can get up to 30 seconds,
then a minute!
• Make collages with thick paper or card, which your child has torn into
pieces.
• Alternatively, have a competition to see how big a wedge of paper your
child can manage to tear at once.
• Encourage your child to water your plants with a pump action sprayer
or to play outside with water pistols or squirting toys to build up endurance.
• A nice activity for encouraging the development of pinch strength is
for your child to ice biscuits with icing in a squeezy tube.
• Plasticine or play dough activities involving pinching, squeezing, making
round shapes and sausage shapes should be done between the two hands and
without the use of the table surface to build up hand strength and endurance.
• Can your child squeeze hard enough with one or two hands to pop the
poppers on bubble wrap?
Hand dexterity
Speed of Dexterity
Often a child has developed the grip and finger isolation skills, but
is unable to coordinate their hands quickly.
Try the following activities to build up speed of hand coordination.
° On a piece of paper draw 3 horizontal rows of light dots 2.5 cm
apart.
Give your child a pencil with a rubber on the end and ask him/her to make
a circle around the first dot. Then turn the pencil over in that hand and
erase the second dot etc. Record the child’s time and repeat. Aim to reduce
the time it takes to complete the race!
° Draw small boxes on a page and provide small stickers to place into
the boxes. How quickly can they stick 10 dots on?
° Place a line of pennies. Challenge the child to turn them over as
fast as they can!
° Encourage your child’s speed by getting him/her to compete against
his/her best time with any activity involving hands i.e. peg placement, threading,
hole punching. Number of coins into piggy bank in 10 seconds.
Derby City NHS Paediatric Therapy Team 2008
Community Paediatric Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy Service
Early Hand Skills part 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
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