How Toys help children with motor Skills Difficulties

Children develop fine motor skills as they age, but some will need some extra help due to a disability or injury. While physical therapy and medical treatments are effective, sometimes simply playing with toys can help a child with their fine motor skills. Here are just a few reasons that stocking up on toys for your child might improve their motor skills.

Moving Objects Improve Gross Motor Skills in Small Children

Once babies start to crawl around, they develop their gross motor skills by physically moving objects. They do this by pushing objects with their hands and feet and even transporting things in their mouths. As babies grow and are able to stand and walk, they learn to bend over and pick up objects to carry them around. Not only does this improve their gross motor skills, but it helps with their spatial awareness.

Since moving and touching toys help even young babies develop their motor skills, a baby needs to be able to play on the floor with their full range of motion. This means that any equipment that is intended to immobilize a baby to keep them "safe" actually impedes their development. While you should absolutely keep an eye on your baby to make sure that they are kept away from anything that can hurt them, you should also give them plenty of room on the floor to play with their toys.

Puzzles, whether they are simple peg puzzles or more advanced jigsaw puzzles, are very popular with young children for good reason. Large peg puzzles with pieces that can be grasped by someone with motor skill difficulties, while learning how the pieces fit together can improve hand-eye coordination. Playing with puzzles and putting them together is also a great way for a child to learn how the world around them works. Young children learn by watching the adults in their lives interact with the world, and a relatively simple puzzle can give them the opportunity to act in a way that provides a sense of accomplishment.

Educational Toys Can Benefit All Children

The most important thing that you can do for a child with motor skill difficulties is to simply let them play. It's how children experience the world around them. Very young babies can develop gross motor skills simply by having things that they can move and push around, while older children can benefit from educational toys such as puzzles or musical toys. While you should be careful about what your young children are doing so that they don't injure themselves, a varied selection of educational toys will always be good for a child's cognitive and physical development.

For more information about how the right toys can be beneficial for a child or to purchase some for your own family, contact Wonder Gears today.