Hi everyone yesterday Nicks OT sent home a new report on him and how therapy is going, they did some testing I think Peabody was one of them..any how he scored at a 27 month old on one test and a 36 month old on the other test. I have been getting so excited about his progress and then this makes me sad. I know I know there are ups and downs, and he has some areas that are strong and some that are week. Well fine motor skills are a weekness. Is this common for kids on the spectrum to score at such a low age group??? He is 5 yrs old, I realize that developmentaly he is younger but it worries me should I be doing more for his fine motor skills?? He is getting OT twice a week for 30 minutes. I was told this is the norm should I ask for more?? Or should I start doing my own OT at home with him? His OT therapist sent home a list of activities he can do at home. So on his 3 week break before school starts back up we will be doing some of them together!! His older sisters can't wait to do them with him. I swear by the time they are adults they will be qualified to be behavior therapists , speech therapists and now OT !!!!
Nita
Not sure if it is common...my dd has fantastic motor skills, but scores low in fine motor too.Well with mine one scored low and one scored high. And I was told this is quite common for children on the spectrum. Now Jeffrey is 13 and still doesn't know how to ride a bike. Whereas Gabe, well he could give Knievel a run for his money
Tammy Riley also has poor fine (and gross) motor skills, which becomes critical really when they start writing... Easy :) Tips for fine motor: My dd has good fine motor skills (or so I thought), but we incorporated it into her home therapy and it helped immensely. She is 4 and writes better than her 7 year old brother. My son has hypermobile joints and terrible fine motor problems, but O.T. won't touch him because he is functional. We are working on things at home and it is helping! There are lots of different exercises that you can do that help develop different muscles in the hands and fingers. Usually O.T. type stuff is fun, so the kids don't complain too much. Your O.T. might have given you a similar list but if you need muscle building ideas..pm me. My daughter did lots with silly putty and marbles. We took a tennis ball, put slit in it for a mouth and decorated it like a face. You then take something to feed the mouth...We use the flies from the obnoxious Mr. Mouth game. Your child has to squeeze the ball to feed the mouth. My skills trainer started my daughter on tracing and drawing lines..ie following the line. My daughter always enjoys the fine motor portion of her therapy and I think that your daughters will enjoy acting as therapists and I found the home portion actually better than the 30 minutes a week at school. Good Luck...hopefully it will be fun and Nick will have some new skills for school. Paul's fine motor skills have always lagged way behind. Academically he is 1-2 years behind, socially he is 4 years behind, fine motor is 6 years behind. He's well on his way with a typing program because we don't think he'll be able to write legibly anytime soon! I understand being discouraged but he is moving forward and learning lots so I hope you'll feel better with all the posts. pat ps great tips! Some things I do with adam at home are...holding and coloring with crayons, pencils etc.. having him hold them with the tripod hold, lacing beads...you can start with bigger block like beads and then work your way down to tiny beads as he masters each skill. Lacing Cards. Can he button and snap and zip?? If not then you can get those toys that have these things. Or you could make a bear or something at home with these things on them to help with those skills too. Thats all I can think of right now. Karrie one of the things keith likes to do for me is to put pennies in a bank. it takes a lot of practice, patience and a real time consumer. but it works, a great fine motor exercise. kate annas fine motor skills have been very high while her gross skills lagged. She walked very late and she still can't climb on the couch very well. She just started jumping and is able to run a little faster than she use to. Her 2 yr old brother can out run and jump her though. I have to help down and up stairs. And she moves in very slow motion when ever we go anywhere. Yet she can draw at an above average level and do puzzles. ????? Thanks for all of the advice and tips!! I did some research and got some great innexspensive ideas. One is a jar and marbles and ice tongs they have to pick up marbles with tongs and put them in the jar. I also got him some pencil grippers out of the different road to learning catolog, they have been using them at school so far we are having better luck with fat markers, we did some cutting tonight he can cut on a straight line but not so good on curves he doesn't turn the paper with the other hand. I also found some paint brushes that have kinda a ball you hold onto, that seem to be easier for him. We painted a picture tonight to frame for his teacher tomorrow is his last day with her
Nita I know Gabe's teacher didn't like for Gabe to use the pencil grippers. She said in her experience with kids she has noticed they tend to interfer with the learning concept of gripping the pencil than actually helping them. And I noticed with mine, they skipped the fat pencils altogether and went straight to the thin ones. Tammy Playdoh isn't stiff enough, but silly putty is silcone based (i think) and it can give you a pretty good work out. We have lots of marbles at our house, so we hide small marbles in the putty. They would also break off crayons to make them small so that my daughter had to change her grip. With my daughter they put letters on the clothes pins and she had to spell her name by attatching the pins to a tin (a little cognitive work mixed with the fine motor). It sounds like you have some good ideas...coloring is a great fine motor activity, dot to dot pictures. Sounds like Nicholas is in for some fun! Takoda's school has him use self opening scissors because his cutting skills are terible. I think Takoda's fine motor skills would come along alot quicker if he would choose right or left. He will draw some letters and shapes now before it was always mazes. He will have me do all the writing for him if he can get away with it. But I have noticed all my boys have very lazy writing skills. Denny is still writing on a second grade level and he is about to enter 7th grade. With Denny when he misbehaves we often have him write like : I will remember to feed the dogs. When he does this I insist it's ledgable and it's really helped. Nelle When Alex was first dx'd, my best friend (a Head Start teacher) warned me that language delays and fine motor delays go hand in hand. I wish I had paid more attention to that! Alex had speech therapy at 2 but not OT. During his psych eval at 4.5 yrs the psych looked at me and said "he needs OT NOW". I took him to our local hospital for an evaluation and treatment. Insurance covered the eval but not treatment. Did you know that private OT costs 8/hr?? Luckily, the OT took pity on me and sent me an at home program. Most the activitites already mentioned are in the program. I would add covering the wall in the bath tub with shaving cream and having him draw shapes, etc in it. I found bathtub crayons at Target. Alex loved to draw on the tub wall with those. They wash off easily too. With the tongs exercise, if marbles are too hard to pick up, try little marshmallows or goldfish crackers. Good luck. Suzi
~Have him slide paper clips onto an index card, picking them up off a flat table, slide onto card
~Bury pebbles / coins / small objects in theraputty and have him remove them
~Pick up coins off a flat table
~slide beads onto pipe cleaners or yarn...it was easiest to start with the pipe cleaner (threading)
(Theraputty is SO expensive...mix 1 part liquid starch with 1 part white glue, add food coloring if you want...sounds odd I know, but it's nearly the perfect consistency! Store in tupperware)
Good luck! These are at least easy ones to do at home! It's another one of those skills that I used to take for granted til I saw how difficult just picking up a penny was for him. Yes!! It helps!
~Lesley
THANK YOU!
~Lesley
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