improving manual dexterity?

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my son is 3 years old, with suspected aspergers. He has constant issues with his manual dexterity. Things like small toy parts that go together/come apart frustrate him, leaving him agitated when he plays with toys typical for his age group (small action figures are too hard to pose, train cars too difficult to connect, ect.) His intrests have always been ahead of what he can do physically. Recently this has been more of a problem however, as his manual dexterity (or lack thereof) makes it hard for him to use silverware. We have "toddler" forks and spoons for him, with big grips, but he finds it so frustrating he's started refusing to feed himself unless its finger food. Lately, even mentioning that its "time to eat" can lead to a meltdown. If we don't say anything and just feed him, its totally fine. But if we try to get him to pick up his fork, he's screaming bloody murder and then wont eat at all for that meal. I don't think its him being babied, as I've has him practicing with silverware since he was 1 1/2, and I've always given him time to feed himself. He's just never gotten any better at it, and now its like he's given up. He will go as far as to not eat at all if people wont feed him from the start now, (we learned this recently after he took a trip to his grandmas where he would eat nothing the whole weekend until she offered him french fries the last day; a finger food.)

my question is this; before I talk to his doctor for suggestions, does anyone have any ideas for toys that help manual dexterity that are good for toddlers? I'm trying to find something he will enjoy fidgeting with. My partner suggested clothes pins, but i worry about him pinching himself. Any suggestions?

My DS likes the Trios building sets http://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Price-TRIO-Building-Set-storage/dp/B001W0D00O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326483415&sr=8-1. THese do take a bit of force to click together but are MUCH easier to manipulate than Legos and for whatever reason, DS likes them a lot more than Mega Blocks. Our OT has them too, maybe that's one reason DS likes them so much. Are you in the US? If so, at age 3 your child becomes the responsibility of the public school system. His dextreity issues are something that an OT could really help with and that help could very likely be provided to you through the school.

I would think finger food would be good for fine motor skills, using the pincer grasp for picking up things like french fries, raisins, small cubes of cheese.

Perhaps take the pressure off for a while and let him improve his actual hand skills before working on tool skills.

So finger food instead of cutlery, finger painting instead of crayons.

Try playing with play-doh, sand and water. Water play can introduce pouring etc. without needing as precise a movement as cutlery. You could have spoons and bowls as part of sand play, without any pressure to find his mouth or worry about spilling.

You could try sticklebricks for building. Imaginext for figures, as they generally don't have moving parts on the figures but if he can slot the figures into "footprint" things, then you twist them and something else will open, a door or something. Be prepared to remove figures that have a tendency to fall over (though we didn't find that with Imaginext too often). Trains that connect with magnets, usually the more expensive wooden variety. Though I know my DS got very frustrated with them at times, as the polarity prevented him from always putting things together the way he wanted.

Look for toys intended as fidget toys, to stretch, squeeze etc. Toys with small buttons to make something happen.

Hi, I feel for you.

At three years old my daughter scored at the 18month old level for fine motor skills. She is now 6 years old and is very advanced ( handwriting is better than most 6th graders and some high school students)

Things that worked for us
Play dough, moon sand, and modeling clay. They build muscles and dexterity, and they won't frustrate the child because there's no right way to do it.

Eating with toddler chopsticks. Easier than a fork and they help to build muscles. http://www.hogwildtoys.com/homeandcastl ... fishsticks

Squeezey type fidgest, the stress balls they give out in waiting rooms.

Doing lots of stuff with paintbrushes.

Her special interest was dinosaurs. We buried dinosaur bones in moon sand and played paleontologist. She would use the paint brush to uncover the dinosaur, chopsticks to hold the dinosaur, and a broken plastic fork to scrape offf caked moon sand. She would work at this for hours!

Lots of finger foods!

Using utensils for things other than eating, digging in the garden with spoons and forks, dipping forks in finger paint and making "track" pictures.

At first she was very resistant to scissors. She loved to help out in the garden, so we told her the scissors were garden tools. After that, she'd go outside and happily cut blades of grass for hours!

I hope some of this helps. It is frustrating at first.

I hope this helps, it can be frustrating.

Does he get OT? My son gets OT for fine motor issues, which is what your son is having trouble with.

Just aside...my 6yo son, who is CAPABLE of using utensils, will still eat with his hands cause its easier. I am actually ok with this at home. When we are out he knows he needs to use the utensils or ask to be fed. BUt I dont force him at home. Maybe I should? I choose to pick my battles, being that there are SOOO many battles to choose from...lol.

My son also has visual motor integration issues but is GREAT with video games, and yes as PP said, he did become OBSESSED with video games, so be careful opening that door!

I have a suggestion, but it would be several years before you could use it, and I'm not sure a boy would be interested at all.

I had a lot of trouble with things like that as a young child, but when I was about six my grandmother taught me to crochet. Once I learned that, I got into complicated and difficult patterns and then moved on to knitting, crewel, embroidery, etc. Maybe when he gets that age you could get him into building models? Those are small and take good skills to work on.

As for now, I'd just go to the toy aisle and look at things. See what you can find that requires something like that. I'm sure there are lots of things and I wouldn't worry too much about the age thats listed on the toy. If you think it's something he would enjoy then go for it. If it's got small parts, just be there to supervise.

Possibly puzzles would be a good idea. They have those big board puzzles for kids, and then you could move to the smaller ones. He's way too young for a 500 piece jugsaw puzzle of course but there are lots of different kinds in between the huge piece ones and the small ones that take forever to do.

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
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For an older boy: we got this book - http://www.amazon.com/Origami-Model-Air ... 4805309997

They aren't true Origami, but do require a lot of the same skills as building a model airplane. We had to help DS a lot, but he was pretty motivated, and they are incredibly cool. It's unfortunate that Origami paper doesn't typically come in "boy" patterns.

i think it depends on if you need to build finger strength or strengthen hand eye coordination... my son at 6 still hates using utensils and now HATES handwriting--- huge reason he hates school- it's the handwriting--- (we have only been seeing OT for 6 months)

they make this silly puddy type stuff with different conistensies (some harder to pull apart)-- OT has it-- and then you can hide shapes (find something they are especially interested in at craft store by scrap book supplies), money, or small letter cubes that they can unscramble for a message (also near scrap book stuff)-- you could do with playdo too but playdo is softer-- and they could use fingers or utensils

also, OT has him doing lots of stuff where he has to focus in 2 places and switch in between-- for example, looking at instructions and trying to build with correct lego type pieces, jigsaw puzzles using box picture as reference, i-spy activities on paper and computer where instructions are in one place and picture is in another... anything involving eye tracking where he has to switch focus between different things or discriminating between details--- she has even had him on a swing on his belly while trying looking at a card and then grabbing the items on the card from the ground... we also subscribe to Puzzlemania (they have a junior version too) which has a lot of these type activities in them.... i have to reward him for finishing these pages-- they are fun and he always wants to start them but they are hard for him so sometimes he wants to give up--

when you get to the point of handwriting, if you are still having problems, look into handwriting without tears--- i wish i had-- we are starting from scratch now--- the school OT told me that teachers do not really have enough time to teach handwriting properly like they used to so kids start "drawing" the letters when they trace them and do not learn to form properly-- put this on top of someone who has trouble with hand eye coordination -- hard to write on a line muchless knowing where on a paper to start plus hard time focusing between board and book--and recipe for disaster..

This might be a TERRIBLE suggestion but it is what we have done with our little one. Don't judge too much!

There are no toys or anything that motivate him enough to work on his fine motor skills, so we give him tightly wrapped candy and soda. He knows that if is able to open the can of soda, he may drink it (this has not happened yet, after 4+ years, but he is getting closer). He's also allowed to eat whatever candy he can unwrap - we've found that smarties and individually wrapped (3 to a pack) sweet tarts are very challenging but doable. Also (gross) ketchup packets and single serving tubs of ranch are provided. The only caveat is that he may not use his teeth to help open the packages.

It's totally unhealthy, but his dexterity has really improved and we limit the amount he can have.

Well I have a couple ideas....don't know if it would be any help though. But when he gets frustrated with these things how do you react? Maybe some encouragement would help but its very possible you've tried that.

Other then that I think there are some good suggestions here, and maybe sometimes finger food is not such a bad idea...other then that I'm 22 and I still sometimes use my hand for things I could use silverware for. Or another issue I still have is when I have trouble putting food on my fork or spoon I sometimes scoop it onto the fork with my hands. So though its very useful to learn to use silverware I would not put too much pressure on it especially if its to the point where he wont even eat if he has to use silverware. Also I just know even as an adult my silverware skills are lacking so its not the end of the world if a child does not perfect it. Also he is three so give it time, as he gets older and probably a bit more mature this will probably become easier for him......even a lot of NT three year olds are terrible at using silverware.

But yes I'd say try to use encouragement, sometimes that helps a little with motivation to learn things......because its frustrating to see other people able to easily do things you have trouble with and can make one feel bad about them self. So maybe suggest its ok he struggles with some things and it might just take him a bit more effort to learn somethings but that there's nothing wrong or bad about that....but also that its not a reason to give up on it.

Your child is really young, so it is difficult to say how deep the issue runs, but I want to give you a heads up: despite years of OT, my son's manual dexterity never improved all that much. It did improve, but in the way all children's dexterity improves with age and practice, and not so much, as far as I could tell, from the things we tried to get him to do. The reality is that many things remain literally painful for him, and will always be much more difficult for him than they are for other people. It is a shame because he has an amazing artistic eye, but is denied the ability to fully execute those visions. But he has become keyboard proficient and he gets by.

He is diagnosed with hypotonia and hyper-mobility and, as I have said, it makes things like writing and holding a spoon properly literally painful.

I would be careful about pushing too hard, to where your son doesn't want to do the things that could build the muscles in his hands. This is an issue for the long haul, and you want him to be comfortable trying, and comfortable slowly working to build strength in his hand muscles. Keep it fun and in reasonable doses.