Gee, it's a geoboard

Remember those mittens? Here's a good example of an older kid who still uses his hands as if he's wearing mittens. He uses his four fingers together to pick up a small checker, rather than using a more precise pincer grasp with the index finger and thumb. That's what is called poor differentiation of the two sides of the hand and of the fingers. The thumb, rather than forming a nice rounded space between it and the index finger, pulls in towards the palm. That indicates underdevelopment of the thumb's webspace. This kiddo needs more proprioceptive input to increase that internal awareness of each finger and its movement and position in space.


Another activity that provides proprioceptive input to the fingers is playing with a geoboard. The board has a grid of pegs on which the child can stretch rubber bands to make shapes and designs. Stretching the rubber bands usually encourages the child to isolate the index and middle finger, or just the index finger alone. The stretch provides traction to those fingers, which provides proprioceptive input.



Using a geoboard does require a moderate degree of coordination and motor planning, but if the child is having difficulty, you can help stabilize the band on a peg or two to prevent them from slipping off.



The geoboard also provides reinforcement of shapes and colors. You can ask the child to copy your shape, or you can ask if he can make a yellow square, green triangle, etc. For more advanced play, you can even print diagrams of the board and see if the child can copy the design from the printed example.



Geoboards are available at educational supply stores.

Pig in the putty

An activity that is frequently used by OTs is working with therapy putty. Small objects such as marbles or miniature toys can be hidden in the putty and the child must squeeze and pinch the putty to find the objects. It is important to vary the activity to sustain the child's interest. You can hide different objects each time. You can also make a game out of the activity by dividing the putty in half and both you and the child can search for the objects in one of the two wads of putty; whoever has the most objects wins. Or you can have the child select one object to be the winning object (for example, the "magic pig") and whoever finds that object wins.

The purpose of working with therapy putty is twofold. First, it provides proprioceptive input to the hands and fingers. Proprioception is "the normal awareness of one's posture, movement, balance, and location based on the sensations received by the body's proprioceptors" (Webster) located in tendons and joints. "Heavy work," such as moving against resistance, pounding, pushing, stomping, and pulling, all provide proprioceptive input which increases the child's awareness of position and space. So squeezing and pinching the putty provides proprioceptive input to the fingers, which helps the child develop awareness of the movement and position of individual fingers. The second purpose of the putty activity is to improve the strength of the small muscles of the hand and fingers.

Please note that, while putty is non-toxic and does not contain latex, it sticks to clothing and is hard to get out. So it's a good idea to work at a table with it and to use a painting smock.