04/30/2026
In honor of OT month, here are some recommendations to improve fine motor skills through play at home! 🏠 🛝
Improve hand strength through play using materials such as: clothes pins, broken crayons, paper tearing and crumble balls, play dough (you can also freeze to add resistance), theraputty, push pins, tweezers, rubber bands, and more.
Fine motor delays are impacted by increased amounts of screen time! 📱💻
Some functional observations indicating your child’s grasp strength is impacting performance include:
🖍️Switching colors (more than would be expected) when coloring
✏️Re-positioning and dropping a pencil when writing
🍱Trouble closing and opening food containers: sandwich baggies, small containers, yogurt pouches (when most peers can)
📎Hyper-flexion of the thumb IP joint when buckling a car seat, writing with a pencil, manipulating small objects- this occurs as a stabilization mechanism to compensate for weak intrinsic muscles.
👌Squashed thumb webspace when writing, coloring, or manipulating objects- This is also a positional mechanism to stabilize.
💪Completing fine motor tasks with gross motor movements of the upper arm (raised shoulder or elbow)
🖍️Complaining that it hurts to color or you'll see very light/gentle coloring, especially in large spaces
If you feel that your child may be experiencing delayed fine motor skills, please reach out to your pediatrician about a referral for OT! ❤️
