Pencil Grippers (click here to shop pfot.com for any of these grippers)

And here to see a chart of some of the grippers I use most often, and for what.

These help children hold and manage their pencils with optimum efficiency, ease, and control. Different grippers work for different children. First, the thin foam sleeve or plastic triangle grippers commonly found for sale in drug stores and office supply stores don't do much besides providing a little cushioning for tight grasps.

The most commonly recommended one in my experience is The Pencil Grip and the larger Pencil Grip Jumbo. It is big and squishy and is best for small hands (up to 7 or 8 years old). It rarely changes a poor grasp that has become a well-established habit, but it can make poor grasps more comfortable since it offers a larger and softer diameter than a naked pencil. The same company now makes even bigger ones too.

 

Another often recommended gripper is the Stetro. It is small and semi-hard and has three indentations for the three fingers. It is more pushy about enforcing a "proper" tripod grasp, and so can sometimes change a poor grasp pattern, especially when use of it is monitored. I find that children who really have a hard time holding a pencil correctly hate this gripper and just push it up to the end of the pencil. A similar gripper but with a little larger surface, and more easily switched to left-handers, is the Solo grip.

The StartRight, Grotto, or Crossover grippers are helpful for stubborn "thumb wrap" grasps (pencil wrapped over index finger). Each has a little "wall" that goes between thumbtip and other fingers.

A ring writer grip can help with a pencil that sticks straight instead of resting against the base of the index finger, as

can a HandiWriter. For directions to make your own imitation handi writer, click here.

The inventor of these triangulated pencils and pens with "ditches" for fingers to fit into sent me a couple to try out. They're called Easyriters. For children who don't want to have grippers or very different looking pencils, I think these may be the thing. They also have worked well for a couple of kids when I tried them out - kind of like a Stetro pencil gripper all the way up and down the pencil (so they can't push the gripper out of the way and then go right back to that thumbwrap!). 

Slant boards and Desk Easels

These are designed to sit on a child's desk and are useful for eliciting a better forearm, wrist, and therefore hand position with writing tools. This is because with your wrist slightly extended back, your thumb and fingers have no choice but to flex slightly into a good opposed-thumb position. Try it now: extend your wrist back about 30 degrees and see how your hand  easily falls into a position to do careful work such as threading a needle. Now flex your wrist far forward and see how hard it is to make delicate movements with thumb and finger together.

Slantboards are elevated at 20 to 30 degrees while desk easels have a much steeper angle (about 60 degrees). Some boards are adjustable in angle.

They are also useful for presenting pages at a better angle than flat on the desk and so can help children with vision or visual-perceptual difficulties.

As an alternative to buying a slantboard, you can use a 3" 3-ring binder turned sideways with a rubber band on it to keep papers from slipping off.

Therapy Putty

This is sort of like silly putty in consistency, but it comes in different resistance levels, which are color coded. There are several different brands and types (air putty, rainbow putty, etc.) that feel and look slightly different, but they all do basically the same thing. This is good for doing straight-forward hand and finger exercises, and its kind of fun to play with. NOTE: therapy putty will get into your carpet, upholstery, hair, and clothes and is difficult to remove (try icing it and then pressing a large piece onto the small stuck-in piece to pick it up). Therefore, it is recommended for younger kids only with supervision. For some therapy putty exercises that work on finger dexterity and hand development, click here.

<>Adaptive Scissors, markers, crayons, etc.

There are all sorts of adaptive scissors for children who don't have mature fine motor skills. For example, there are scissors with a little spring built in or with a loop on the handle which will open themselves. The child needs to squeeze the scissors to snip, but doesn't have to do the more demanding finger extension movement to open the scissors. An OT can recommend and may try out types of adaptive scissors for your child, but look at these little "learning scissors" (also called Benbow scissors for the OT who designed them) if you are looking for something great for a preschool of Kindergarten child who is working on mastering scissor-cutting.

Therapro, Inc.  -I usually order from this catalog: lots of activities, books, and tools. Prompt shipping, and it's free for orders over $25.
225 Arlington Street
Framingham, MA 01702-8723
Tel: (508) 872-9494 • (800) 257-5376
Fax: (508) 875-2062 • (800) 268-6624
Email: info@theraproducts.com
Web Address: www.theraproducts.com