Valuable Guide to Developmental Gift Ideas for Fine Motor Skills

While parenting a child with special needs, I have worked closely with occupational therapists and speech therapists and continue to study what works best for my son.  There is a lot to learn once your child is diagnosed with a delay. A fine motor delay is the inability to use your hands and fingers to hold and manipulate objects. It is often caught as they begin school, as it will have a major effect on their ability to write and use scissors. The basic, and the most critical components, our kids need is our presence, our involvement, and a few fun tools. This guide is meant to take the work out of it for you, so you can spend more time strengthening those little hands and fingers. I will share with you the tools I used successfully with my child. These are simple, fun things that parents, grandparents, or caregivers can use to help their child develop skills while also having fun.

FINE MOTOR SKILLS

I worked with my son on developing his fine motor skills throughout the Birth-to-three program.  Once he aged out of birth-to-three, his fine motor skills were within the normal range. Fine motor movement is the coordinated movement of the small muscles of the hands and fingers. This developmental skill is mainly of interest to schools because it affects handwriting. Regardless of your child’s current capabilities, you can start with any of these options. I used a wide variety of toys to keep it interesting for my son. It can be challenging to get a toddler to sit still long enough to practice fine motor skills. If you are on a budget, many of these items can be purchased second hand or made from things you have around your home.  The purpose of this list is to help friends and family of special needs kids to find gifts that are not only fun but useful.

(Disclaimer: If you buy any of the items from the links provided, I will receive a percentage of the sale.  I do not post things unless I believe they were worth spending money on)

AGES UP TO PREKINDERGARTEN

For the youngest kids, the one to three-year-olds, The following is a list of toys we used in therapy. I found the closest equivalents for you: 

The remaining fine motor toys, I have purchased myself.  We used them in therapy and on our own: 

The buckle toy pictured below was one of my son’s favorites. He could play with it for hours. There are other options that include zippers, laces, snaps, etc.

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