The Importance of Fine Motor Skills

Well there is many articles out there to talk about the importance of fine motor skills, what is Fine Motor Skills, why is so important. I think myself as  a parent is very tricky thing to catch because we don't really think about that when we don't have that problem. We kind of take for granted. So we have to pay attention how our kids grab things or how they do small tasks so we can prevent. Most kids with Autism have some weakness with fine motor development, usually Occupational therapy helps with that and there is a lof things out there that we can do at home to help.

We want to prevent this to happen.

As you can see here my son is grabbing the fish with the wrong finger which he should use the pointer the difficult he has with that reacts in many other things like his inability to point. But it's a constant work and training the brain. We've noticed that one hand is better than other so correction helps and hand over hand and soon he was doing the correct way which made grabbing the fishes easier for him.

here is the correct way

We have to see toys sometimes with other eyes, my husband at first thought this toy is for older kids. But when I see a toy I don't always look for the age level because many times I won't use the toys as it's  suppose to be, which makes the toy have a longer use because right now he does't get the concept of this game in a group but later we can play together, for now this toys I use for color matching, and fine motor skills and visual skills (when turning on the table it goes in a circle motion). Later we can even use for math skills. So this is what I'm learning is to see the potential and if the toy can help him with something because there is many toys out there that really doesn't teach anything and are just noisy.

Other toys that are great for fine motor.

Jana

The fear of hair cut

Well some kids but specially  kids with sensory issues have a hard time cutting the hair.
I can just speak for my son, I think when we try to use the machine (which we stopped) literary freaks him out. Then what happens is his hair cut gets even worse because he moves and fights and scream so much.
It  would be a dream to take him to a salon and have someone do the job: yes but this is not our reality so
the way I do now is what is giving me the most success.

First I went and got things that would really distract him in the bath tub, things that he is really into right now in his case Thomas of course and abcs and pots to transfer water and bubble bath and thicker soaps.(the ones like shaving cream)





This Thomas boat is really cute and really got him distracted





What I do than is get my scissors and cut little by little each day some days he lets me cut more some days less i do it real fast and he gets annoyed I play more and cut more, I get the chunks on my hand and put in the trash so not all goes to the bath tube.
So far has been working and the important thing here is the association with cutting with good things, the problem I think in insisting on cutting when the child is screaming is that he or she associates with something bad. And we don't want that.
Another ideas of things that helps and which also you can work with speech while giving a bath.




Hope that helps
Jana