Why pincer grasp is important

Explore the child development timeline or the interactive questionnaires for more information. You can find general hints and tips to teach children and young people new life skills.

The pincer grasp is an essential grasp to develop as it is the basis for many functional tasks e. The activity ideas below aim to develop pincer grip. Please be aware that playdough both shop bought and homemade may contain wheat. Make sure you use a wheat free alternative if there is a known wheat allergy.

Click here for a gluten free playdough recipe. Sensory strategies to help generic : Theraputty. Sensory trays with a variety of tactile input. Hand massages and squeezes. Finger aerobics. Use a contrast with the hands and fingers: hot and cold, rough and soft, wet and dry activities. Incy wincy spider nursery rhyme. Use of a mirror to bring attention to the hands. Movement and strength The correct finger strength will allow a child to control the movement within the fingers required to pick up the items they need and use it appropriately for an activity.

Activities generic : Place different sized pom-poms into a container. Using tongs, pick up the pom—poms one at a time and place into the empty container. Clip clothes pegs onto containers, around thick cardboard or at the end of a shirt.

Hide very small objects or toys in playdough and manipulate to find them. In Montessori classrooms, we support this refinement with integrated opportunities to use the grip throughout the classroom. Transferring with tongs? You're building the muscles of the hand and finger on which the pincer grip relies.

Removing the cylinders from the first block of Knobbed Cylinders? You're going to need your pincer grip to do that with ease.

Look around the room: you'll see the grip in tools throughout the classroom, from the needles in our embroidery lessons to the pushpins children use to poke out the shapes of the continents.

Children practice the larger muscles they'll need through activities with the full hand, like opening and closing containers, managing the Sound Cylinders and carrying the cubes of the Pink Tower. They practice the smaller muscles of the pincer grip by using tweezers, sorting buttons or nuts, or using counters. Before a teacher will introduce the early writing materials, the Metal Insets for example, she'll observe to determine how refined the child's pincer grip is.