Hi, I'm Aubrey and I'm a registered occupational therapist here at Addie’s AutismFITT Club. Today I'm going to talk with you about in hand manipulation. In hand manipulation is fine motor skills that are important for things we do everyday such as getting dress, tying our shoes, writing with a pencil, erasing, opening containers, all sorts of things you imagine doing things with your hands. So we are going to first talk about the types of in hand manipulation.
There is rotation, there is simple and complex. There’s shift and there is translation, which there is finger to palm and palm to finger.
Simple rotation, is when you have an object between your thumb and one or two of your fingers, and you just rotate it like this. So that is simple rotation and it could be used for opening a screw top lid and things like that.
The next is complex rotation and that is for things like if you’re writing and you need to flip your pencil to erase, and also if you’re doing something like a peg board, you pick it up and you rotate it, to put it in the right way and things like that.
Shift, is important for pencil grasp. If you need to adjust, this is used for adjustment mostly, moving up and down a pencil, or separating pages in a book. If pages get stuck together, you separate the pages by using shift.
Then we have translation. Translation, there’s two types. First their is finger to palm, so you pick it up between your pincer grasp, your index finger and your thumb and you shift it into your palm. Palm to finger translation, is moving it from your palm out to your fingers. It’s the opposite to finger to palm translation.
Next I have some great exercises for your kiddos to do at home, if they’re having problems with these things.
The first one is called pencil twirls, because that is what it is. It works on the complex rotations. So I tell the kids, pretend your writing and turn your pencil over and erase, flip it over and write, flip it over and erase. So I normally have them go around 5 full rotations, just to practice and that’s really good to help those fingers to work together.
The next is pencil walks, this is shift. So I have the kids grab a pencil, like they’re going to write and shift their fingers up the pencils and walking down. Walking down is much harder. I usually have them do about 5 of those also. If they drop the pencil, that means there is weakness and some discoordination. So these are some good exercises for them.
For the translation, I have my handy minion bank. These are $3-$5 at Target, and the kids love them! I normally do 3-5 pennies on the table, and I have the kids using their pincer grasp, I call it their pinchers. They pick the penny up from the table, just like that. I don’t want them to slide it, I want picking it up from the table, and moving the penny into their palm and I tell them to hide it in their palm. Pick up another penny, and hide it in their palm. Pick up another penny and hide it in their palm. Then, we move over to the piggy bank and you have to bring one up at a time to drop it in, just like that. So that is, finger to palm translation and then palm to finger translation.
The last thing I want to talk about is opposition. This is a fine motor skill that is very important for all these in hand manipulation skills its being able to isolate each finger to touch the thumb. A good way to practice opposition is by getting markers, or stickers if kids don’t want the marker on their finger. I tend to do four different colors, I put a dot on each finger, like so… but not the thumb.
Then I will give them 3 colors to choose from. Then I’ll say, “Okay touch blue green and pink.” Then they touch blue green and pink. Then you keep giving them 3 random colors, and it’s good work for their brain and for the isolation of their fingers. This helps with tying shoes, snaps, and buttons.
Thank you so much for your time. Visit autismfitt.com for more videos.
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