Figure 1 Nathaniel uses playdough to help develop his pincer grip and finger isolation skills.
Nathaniel has been working on a programme to develop his pincer grip and finger isolation skills. Nathaniel will need these skills as he prepares to learn to write braille with a brailler.
Lynda Williams (Resource Teacher Vision) describes some of the activities the education team have included into the classroom programme.
Finger strength in isolation
Nathaniel has been developing his finger strength in isolation during the following activities:
- playing the piano,
- creating shapes with play dough,
- poking holes in play dough,
- squeezing a lump of play dough in his hands, so that it squishes through his fingers.
Pincer grip
Figure 2 Nathaniel with clothes peg on the front of his top
We played a game where we placed large spring-loaded clothes pegs on the front of Nathaniel’s top to encourage him to use a two digit pincer grip rather than a whole handed grasp when picking up items.
He was able to pull them off by squeezing the clothes peg with his whole hand as seen in figure 2.
We encouraged Nathaniel to use a pincer grip with his thumb and index finger by placing narrower spring-loaded clothes pegs on the cuff of his sweatshirt.
He was able to isolate his thumb and index-finger to take the pegs off his cuffs with a pincer grip.
First we placed the clothes pegs on the left cuff so he could use his dominant right hand to take them off.
Figure 3 Nathaniel with clothes pegs on the cuff of his sweatshirt
After he had successfully removed the clothes pegs from his left cuff several times we placed them on his right cuff to encourage him to use his left hand and to cross the midline (figure 3).
Next steps for Nathaniel
Nathaniel is using a tactile timetable but we are adapting it to hang on the wall from a washing line.
The items or tactile cues will be hung with spring-loaded clothes pegs on the line and Nathaniel will be able to practice his new pincer grip skills when he checks his timetable.
Teaching and learning strategies and adaptations
Finding highly motivating activities such as playing the piano and the guitar as well as using playdough encouraged him to use individual fingers.
We used two different sizes of spring-loaded clothes pegs and put them on Nathaniel’s clothes so that he could locate them. Initially we used clothes pegs with a wide top so that he could hold the top with a whole-handed grasp and by squeezing his hand opened the peg. When Nathaniel became proficient we moved to smaller pegs so that he needed to use a pincer grip to open them.
Useful links
- Pre braille skills – Pathways to literacy website developed by TSVBI and Perkins School for the Blind.
- Teaching Braille reading and writing from Perkins School for the Blind – YouTube.
More information
If you would like to find out more information about this subject, email us at BLENNZ Online.
We will link you up with either the author of this post or another BLENNZ colleague with whom you can continue your conversation.