Fine motor performance in normal and MCD children

Fine motor control is an extremely important element of our everyday lives, with many normal tasks requiring good manual control for efficiency, such as writing, buttoning, handling small objects and pressing keys on a computer. Lindner (1988) expresses that ‘the developmental study of finger and hand dexterity is of interest because of the prominent role fine manipulative skills play in today’s society’. As a result, extensive research has been carried out in order to discover and record the normal progression of the development of fine motor control in children. This is extremely important to enable physiotherapists to assess children, as they need age appropriate normative data. Detection of abnormal fine motor control relies upon the successful application of an assessment tool suitable for the child’s chronological age and ability. Assessment can be seen as the initial phase, or precursor to, physiotherapy intervention, providing a baseline and focus for treatment and programme implementation (Burns and Higgins, in Burns and MacDonald, 1996). An assessment tool must be able to quantify and qualify the child’s movement performance, while detecting normality as well as abnormality