How OT's help
Whether your child's school has identified problems with their fine motor skills or you have noticed such difficulties yourself, we can help.
Childhood development is complex and not all children will move at the same pace, but some of the most common reasons that a parent will contact us with concerns about their child's fine motor skills include:
- An awkward or immature pencil grasp
- Messy or slow writing, drawing or colouring
- Excessive tiredness after short periods of writing, drawing or typing
- Difficulty when using scissors or performing precise manipulations such as fastening buttons, zips or shoelaces
- Problems performing self-care tasks independently
- Reluctance to engage with tasks requiring hand-eye coordination such as building Lego
Our assessment process allows a specialist occupational therapist to identify the nature of your child's difficulties with fine motor skills, and the reasons for them. Once identified, we can work with you and your child to put in place a plan to address them.
Packages of care
We are flexible around the needs of your child and family and have a variety of fine motor skill treatment packages to ensure we provide the right solution for you. All of our interventions are oriented towards ensuring that you and your child see measurable improvements.
This might include one or more of the following:
- An eight-week block of one-to-one bespoke treatment sessions, delivered to your child at home or school, after which we will review and plan the next steps with you
- An intensive block of treatment delivered over the holidays - this is popular with overseas families, or those with limited weekend or after-school capacity in term time
- A home and school programme providing practical, everyday techniques, with advice and support to ensure that the approach is consistent throughout your child's day
- Attendance at a fine motor skills group at weekends or over the holidays
Common areas we work on
Through our assessment we will identify the specific fine motor skills that your child is struggling with, and the source of these difficulties, allowing us to plan a targeted treatment programme.
Some of the most common areas that we would expect to be working on include:
- Hand dominance
- Bilateral integration
- Finger isolation
- Hand and finger strength
- Working with parents and schools to ensure that the right approaches to developing fine motor skills continue even when the OT is not present
