motor skills development

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hello,
i just got my son's report card and he is doing very well in kindergarten. The thing is he has very messy writing, doesn't really color within the lines and has a hard time using scissors.

i am not quite sure what to do with him to improve this, he likes numbers but i think if i get him to color then cut out numbers i'm not sure it will carry over to other things.

from those of you a little ahead of us, how delayed are those motor skills?
is ther anything i can do to help him?

any suggestions for his teacher?
one EA got him to count the crayon strokes in each candle that he colored and he stayed in teh lines a little better.

part of me wonders if he just finds it pointless adn unchallenging so he doesn;t want to so it but has to do it as part of his assignments, how do i explain to him that we have to do things we don't always like to do but still have to do them well?

I've heard that triangle pencils can help kids, learn how to hold a pencil properly and help them write better. Also, I saw recently at Crayola.com that they released triangle shaped crayons, so you can try those too.

we have one of those rubber pencil grip things somewhere around here, but i may go and pick up a few of those triangle pencils too. thanks

hopefully ther's somethign we can do to improve this but i also realize that fine motor skills are not an AS strength usually.

Something that helped me (haven't tried it with my kids as they are still preschool age) was to trace around what I'm coloring before I filled it in. I don't know why, but I always had a hard time organizing where the lines were if they were just in black.

I also had poor handwriting (my husband still thinks it's bad) and did extra handwriting skill stuff through 3rd grade. It's legible, but not necessarily always neat unless I try hard. And I always found the pencil grips cumbersome. I still don't use the 'correct' pincer grasp.

Just some thoughts.

I myself have trouble with scissors at times and colouring.

Tis why I swore myself off drawing and writing. Typing is much easier.

An idea might be to get some of that lines paper with the dotted letters and whatever written down. He traces over them and eventually he may remember.

Regards
GM

Check him for hyper-mobility in the finger joints. Thats my problem.

We have a pen that vibrates for Heidi to use. The result is a bit wobbly from the vibrations but using it seems to have helped her motor control and now she does very well with regular pens and pencils also - although still messy and outside the lines but she is 3 years old so I'm not too fussed about that yet.

Handwriting practice doesn't work for my gf's son, either. This kid writes more than anyone on the planet. He's a list maker. He goes through 3-4 180 page notebooks a week (front and back). You couldn't read what he wrote if someone held a gun to your head.

It is possible that your son has a temporary problem that will improve with patience and practice, but it is also possible he has a co-morbid condition. In the case of the later, getting it identified as soon as possible is important.

I know of two possibilities at the moment, one that my son has and one that the actor Daniel Radcliff (Harry Potter) has.

My son has loose joints, hyper-mobility, which makes it literally painful for him to hold a pencil or crayon properly, and limits his ability to apply proper control and pressure. Improvement here requires years of OT, and eventually accommodations such as reduced writing assignments and keyboarding. His skills have improved but they will never be good. His writing is still pretty much illegible, at age 11. The weird thing is that he has very accurate artistic vision, and can render the proportions and detail of something like a dragon very accurately. Just really messy and disjointed. When working on project teams, he is now usually assigned the job of "draft artist," where he lays out the roughs for what the team wants, and someone else traces, details, and colors. He is now keyboarding most of his assignments but isn't typing fast enough for note taking, so that is left to memory.

The other has a name that I cannot remember at the moment. There was a thread on this forum a while back about it. In that case, it's a brain wiring issue. I don't know what can be done to improve or overcome it.

And it could be both.

So ...

You may have a typical AS delay or weak area, or there could be something more. If it is something more, it will be better to know sooner rather than later. Please discuss the possibilities with your school and doctor.

do any of you with AS find coloring to be non stimulating and pointless?
i am just wondering if that is part of teh problem sinc emost kids his age can't read etc yet, so they do lots of coloring pages to reinforce ideas. i just wonder if he' s like i know it;s a circle but why do i have to color 10 of them? so that;s why he doesn't care?
it's just a thought or theory of mine but i am curious.

What DW_a_mom says is true for me too. 29 years of practice has not made me much better.

Just watch his finger joints when he writes. Do the tips bend back farther than most people, perhaps your own?

Perhaps lightly wrap a thin strip of masking tape around his last finger joints. Just one layer. It should stiffen his fingers enough to improve his writing if that is the problem. I'll make a picture demonstrating. Let him apply the tape perhaps, so its not too tight.

Wider tape is perhaps more important than thicker. You want to limit the mobility of whatever joints seem too lax.

[edit] I used bandage tape.[edit]

I honestly find writing to be over-rated to be honest.

Realistilcally, typing is becoming far more widespread and as such, hand-writing is becoming a lost art.

Teaching a child to spell is good but writing...eh. To me, Aspies have enough problems without worrying over writing and colouring.

Regards
GM

I believe that the loose joints are also a wiring issue, just the opposite of toe walking, where the joints get tighter and tighter when overstimulated. In loose joints, it's not really a joint problem at all, but the nerves never tell the muscles to tighten quick enough or long enough to ever get a good contraction. At least that's what our OT told us.

We have tried every crayon and pencil shape we could find, except the vibrating pencil. Will have to look for that one as once the nerves get stimulated enough, he tends to perk up a little bit. Always plays better after 10 minutes of swinging, etc.

I agree that part of it is just a motivational thing, too. One day he found a coloring book of his obsession and finished the whole thing in one sitting. That's all he did for that day. A lot of it was like scribbled over in black, but he had a grand time and hasn't colored anything willingly before or since.

It's a very fine line we walk. I would love him to have perfect handwriting, but he's had 2 years of OT and still very illegible. I was told that he'd probably lose his OT services for next year because he's not slipping out of his chair anymore.