Motor Skills:

One of the great difficulties facing practitioners and researchers working with individuals with ASD is the degree to which variability supersedes universality in this population (Pope et al., 2010). 

Due to sensory processing challenges, children with Autism can have difficulty with gross motor and fine motor skills. Having said that, children will not have the same pattern of difficulty in their motor skills.

As each child’s neurological system develops at a different rate, the child may present with good gross motor skills and have difficulty in their fine motor skills.

The following are a common list of gross motor and fine motor skills, that are observed in children with Autism.

Gross motor difficulties:

• Difficulty with proprioception (ability to know where his/her body in space)
• Lack of muscle strength and endurance
• Difficulty maintaining posture and stability
• Difficulty in performing sequence of motor tasks (monkey bars in playground equipment)
• Difficulty with balance and motor coordination (using play ground equipment)
• Difficulty with catch, kick and throw a ball
• Difficulty with jumping, hopping and standing on one leg
• Difficulty learning to ride a bike or learning new sports
• Body Schema: Difficulty identifying their right and left body parts

Fine motor difficulties:

• Difficulty with isolated finger movements (moving fingers separately in each hand)
• Difficulty with in hand manipulation skills (translation, rotation and shifting with palm and fingers)
• Difficulty using spoon, knife and fork 
• Difficulty with buttoning tasks and zipper
• Difficulty using both hands for functional tasks (Bilateral Coordination)
• Hand writing tasks
• Handling coins

You will find some strategies to encourage motor skill development on this website. Remember however that the best source of information will be the child’s Occupational Therapist, who will be able to advise with regards to the child’s individual strengths and needs.

Further information can be found in the dedicated tabs on the left (top for some mobile users). Please select a tab to view the information.

Activities to Improve Balance:

• Walking on stilt blocks or cans, forwards, backwards and cross- legged along a ‘path’ on the floor, or between the rungs of a ladder placed flat on the floor.
• Walk with one foot straight in front of another along a line or walk cross- legged or backwards.

• Walk along a line or balance beam, with a book balanced on the head.
• Trampoline work, catching, walking quickly, changing directions and hitting a balloon thrown to him/her.
• Sibling competition: standing on one leg’ like a flamingo’.

Activities to Improve Scissor Skills:

• Use tongs or tweezers to pick up raisins, cereal, pasta, cotton balls, etc. to put into an egg carton or bowl.  Count the objects as the child places them or have a race.
• Use small water guns to water plants or clean shaving cream off a balloon.
• Tear paper or tissue paper of various colours into strips and then pieces, and glue the pieces onto paper to make a design.
• Use pickle forks to pick up and release all kinds of small objects.  You could have a race to see who can pick up the most or put colours into a pattern.

• Use eye droppers to squeeze paint onto paper or coffee filters.
• Glue yarn to clothespins for “hair” to put onto a cardboard face, or squeeze clothespins to put onto the sides of a box.
• Draw a maze on paper and glue pieces of thread or pipe cleaner along the maze to create an “obstacle course”.
• Glue sandpaper along both sides of a line to help the child control the direction of his/her scissors.
• Glue a small toy onto the scissors and cue the child to make the toy move forward toward a picture or sticker at the other end of the line (i.e. rabbit hopping toward the Easter egg).
• Punch holes along a line or design to provide tactile and visual cues as the child is cutting. 

Activities to Improve Ball Play:

• Try balls with different textures (bumpy, “koosh”, squishy etc.) 
• Balls can be used as early as when the child is beginning to sit. Propping their arms up higher on a pillows or a box may help them to sit on their own and encourages their back to be more upright. 
• Children enjoy rolling the ball back and forth to you when seated on the floor. This is a great way to challenge their balance in sitting. 

• Kicking a ball requires the children to shift their weight to one foot and support themselves like that in order to kick it. 
• Throwing balls of different sizes and weights requires balance, coordination, and the use of two hands. When they are able to throw it, place a block tower in front of them and encourage them to hit the tower. 
• Position the child on their stomach, with legs straight. With a beach ball and paper towel roll tube, have them lift their backs to hit the ball with the tube. 
• Hanging a ball from a height encourages the children to reach up and jump to hit the ball in the air.

Pre-writing Skills:

Intrinsic muscles in our hands are responsible for hand strength and dexterity (ability to handle small  objects). We need shoulder and forearm muscles for stability to coordinate the movements in the hand.

Therapists will first work on proximal shoulder stability to improve the performance in distal mobility in hand.

Children need to process the sensory information using their tactile perception and proprioception to perform fine motor tasks like holding the pencil in appropriate grasp and develop their prewriting skills.

Tips to improve pre-writing skills:

• Posture and seating is key for improving writing skills. The table and chair need to be appropriate size for the child.
• Work on an easel or on a vertical surface for acquiring appropriate pencil grasp and wrist in proper position.
• Use activities to strength the shoulder, elbow, arm and wrist for stability
• Use resistive activities like Theraputty to improve finger strength and coordination
• Use activities to improve eye hand coordination
• Provide activities to improve pre-writing skills