Play with a Purpose

Since Ellie started crawling a few months ago, she tends to bend her wrist backwards (putting the back of her hand on the floor, instead of her palm).  She corrects herself when she puts weight on it, but we mentioned it to our pediatrician anyway, just to be safe.  She said that it’s probably okay, since she corrects it, but if we were concerned we could take her for an occupational therapy consult.  We just happen to have a friend who is an OT, and who works with pediatrics!  So, last Sunday she came over and played with Ellie for a bit to give us an evaluation.

A couple pictures to show how she uses the back of her hand, instead of her palm. 

 

 

 

Meghan evaluated her fine motor skills and her visual acuity.  Since Ellie was born three weeks early, we looked at her adjusted age.  Being born early means that all of the developmental milestones that should have happened in the womb had to happen after birth, plus everything that should happen after birth anyway still has to happen.  For instance, the rooting reflex typically develops at 38 weeks gestation.  Since Ellie was born at 37 weeks gestation, she had to work on that a little harder than a baby who was born full-term (40 weeks), plus get adjusted to life outside of the womb.  That’s why many babies born early are a little bit behind in development.  Anyway, at the time of this assessment, Ellie’s adjusted age was 8 months, 3 weeks.  She scored between 8-9 months for both fine motor skills and visual acuity, right where she should be!  She’s so close to walking (standing, taking steps, has great balance), I bet she would score above her age (or at least right at her actual age) for gross motor skills.

After watching how she flips her hand over, Meghan gave us some suggestions on ways to help Ellie.  First of all, she couldn’t find a reason for her to do such a thing.  She said that maybe Ellie has loose joints, and it just naturally does it.  Secondly, she said that since she is so close to walking, it shouldn’t be an issue for too much longer, since she’ll be off of her hands and knees soon anyway.  Until then, though, we’re going to work with her.

Playing with her nesting cups

Meghan suggested we incorporate play that will require her to extend her wrists.  We got some foam bath toys to play with; When they’re wet, they stick to the tub.  There’s a window in Ellie’s play room that’s the perfect height for her, so we thought we’d try that.  But, Ellie is teething right now, and only wants to chew on her foam toys, so we’ll try that activity again in a couple of weeks.  We have another toy – and activity center with blocks and beads to play with.  We have it up on an ottoman, so she has to reach (extending her wrist) to play with it. 

Standing and reaching to spin the blocks requires wrist extension

We also got some blocks for her to play with by banging them together.  One area she’s slightly behind in is clapping, so banging the blocks together helps her bring both hands to the midline, reinforcing the clapping motion.  Fortunately, she uses both hands pretty much equally, which Meghan said was a good sign for development (we don’t develop a preference for right vs left until 3 or 4 years old).  I also got some nesting cups, which Ellie likes to bang together.  I read recently that nesting toys help babies understand that some things are larger than others, and that smaller things can fit inside bigger things.  Plus, they’re good for stacking, and when a baby knocks down a tower of toys, it helps them understand cause and effect. 

I know Ellie  probably thinks that all of these toys are just for fun, but it’s pretty amazing to me to know how much she’s growing and developing just by playing.