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Occupational Therapist from Caro Consultancy and Capable Kids Melissa King called into Storytime on Tuesday to help raise awareness amongst parents and carers of preschool children to monitor fine and gross motor development in children – pencil grip, muscle tone, hand dominance, the importance of play to encourage gross muscle development, coordination, and bilateral skills used when climbing. Melissa also talked about when a child should be referred to an Occupational Therapist and this is for things like this: If your child does not achieve developmental milestones at appropriate times such as rolling, sitting, crawling;
If your child is unable to maintain a grasp of a pencil to draw;
If you child has difficulty doing up buttons, zippers, picking up small items with finger tips;
If your child has difficulty engaging or concentrating on fine motor activities;
If your child has difficulty with handwriting at school, eg. poor letter formations, letter reversals (after Year 1), increased pencil pressure, a sore hand when writing;
or if your child has difficultly with sensory processing eg. avoids swings, or crowds, tags on clothes annoy them, intolerant to messy play, sensitive to loud noises, avoids feeling certain textures. Another tip Melissa advised to help with coordination and handwriting was to give children a variety of writing utensils to use eg. pencil, crayons of different sizes and not just textas all the time. Melissa also let parents know Caro Consultancy and Capable Kids is an approved FaHCSIA, medicare and private health insurance provider and approved to see children with Autism under the federal government FaHCSIA initiative.
Thank you Melissa for calling in.