Fine Motor Development Essay

Mastering fine motor skills is a very important process needed for physical and cognitive development. It is during early childhood that most children develop these skills, however there are many children that do not. A young child’s fine motor skills are developed through a vast array of activities that aide the child in doing little things such as grasping a toy as an infant, and buttoning buttons as a toddler or tying shoes when they are a preschooler. Fine motor development is the development of the small muscles in the hands and fingers. Many crucial daily activities depend on strong motor skills, such as writing, using eating utensils and getting dressed, among other things. Without fine motor skills a child will have difficulties preforming

Adam’s closed-loop theory suggests that there are two important components to his theory and the first one is the perpetual trace. Adams states that in the beginning when learning a new skill, the perpetual trace is weak (Mazur, 2012), for example, when an infant is learning to grasp a toy, at first he will finger it, trying to get the feel of it, then he will try and wrap his fingers around it, eventually he will pick it up, just to drop it without even realizing he was holding it in the first place. After several attempts of the infant going through the perpetual trace, the second important component to Adam’s theory begins to take place and the infant will have mastered picking up and playing with the toy. The second component is the motor trace, also known as the memory trace, which basically is the idea that through learning what it feels like to complete the movement, the infant “must also learn to coordinate his muscles so that the movement is indeed produced (Mazur,

Creating a strategy to help strengthen fine motor skills of a young child who is developmentally delayed can be done by doing activities such as having the child mimic one’s own actions such as using the pincer grasp to pick up small pieces of food or otherwise which will help the child learn to hold a pencil when it comes time for that. Playing simple video games is another activity that strengthens these skills because the act of playing the video game promotes hand-eye coordination which improves the ability to use the small muscles of the hand to be able to work the remote control needed to play the game. In doing so the child is rewarded with accomplishing levels, which make the child want to keep practicing until the goals of the game are accomplished (Vanderbilt University,