Adapted Fine Motor Activities for Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD)

"Fine motor tasks" refers to a set of movement skills that require control of the small groups of muscles, which work in coordination in order to achieve motor accuracy and hand-eye coordination. Many activities in daily life, like grasping utensils, cutting, dressing, buttoning, tying laces, opening a faucet, opening a door, drawing, writing, and threading, are done with the palms and are the ones that allow the child and adult to adapt to his/her environment, learn, play and adapt to a vast array of tasks. Proper development of fine motor skills leads to good execution of daily skills and skills that are needed for learning, such as drawing and writing.

In regular and special education, there are children diagnosed with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). For many of them the acquisition of fine motor skills is a difficult, frustrating and tedious process. These children are unable to achieve the level of expertise expected of children their age. Failure to provide appropriate care for children who have difficulty performing fine motor skills leads to the onset of accompanying difficulties in the behavioral, emotional, perceptual-cognitive, and performance-related areas. It is our responsibility as parents and educators to make efforts in order to cultivate fine motor skills for all children, and especially for those with DCD.

In the presentation a variety of unique activities for improving fine motor skills will be displayed. The activities are aimed at cultivating palm and fingers differentiation, finger opposition, eye-hand coordination and accuracy, in a pleasant way.