Fine Motor Skill Help, or Low Muscle Tone Help

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  • daycare
    Advanced Daycare.com *********
    • Feb 2011
    • 16259
    #1

    Fine Motor Skill Help, or Low Muscle Tone Help

    I have a child that has been with me since he was 18mo and is now 4.5 years old. The child has overcome lots of obstacles with learning and behavior.

    One thing that I can't quite figure out is that the child shakes when asked to use fine/large motor skills. Basically any time you ask the child to control their muscles to complete a task.

    The child did drool when she was younger, but that end over a year ago. I noticed the shaking right away when the child was young, but the parents always had an excuse for it. She is cold, she took asthma meds and etc.

    Well here we are almost 3 years later and this is still going on. The times that I notice it the most are with writing. When she writes her name she shakes so bad that she can't make good contact with the pencil to the paper. Also when eating.

    The parents claim they don't see it. I need some help on how to approach this with the parents. So far I have saved all of her writing from the last 4 months, it's actually getting worse, not better. I have taken video, but I have not showed them yet.

    I don't even know how to go about talking about this or what this could be. One of the other things that I noticed was that if you ask her to walk on a straight line her limbs and head start shaking. she is a very large child for her age in both height and weight.

    any thoughts on this??

    thanks ladies
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    • Controlled Chaos
      Daycare.com Member
      • Jun 2014
      • 2108
      #2
      I don't have experience with this directly but as a former physical fitness instructor - I recommend 1. requiring a not from a physician by X date. 2. Coming up with exercises or activities and games that include a lot of challenging fine motor skills. Short of a specific diagnosis its a matter of repetition and building muscle. Maybe make small achievable goals with dcg - when you can do blank 3 times in a row you earn ____ (stickers, dollar store etc.).

      Good luck.
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        • Unregistered
          #3
          That sounds pretty serious. Definitely agree you need to get the parents to talk to the doctor. The fact that you have writing samples and video would probably help the doctors a lot. I wouldn't make goals up for rewards. It seems like it could be really hard on the dcg, if she can't actually do it.
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            • daycare
              Advanced Daycare.com *********
              • Feb 2011
              • 16259
              #4
              they have brought up to their doctor at each wellness check up, or so they tell me and every time they come back saying the doc is not concerned because we don't see it.

              UGH
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                • kendallina
                  Advanced Daycare.com Member
                  • Jul 2010
                  • 1660
                  #5
                  Weird that the parents don't seem to notice it. My daughter, 6 years old, has low muscle tone and when she was young (2-3 years old), we would notice a lot of shaking, mostly in her legs. We actually cut out milk for an unrelated issue (gastro problems) and after about a month noticed that the shaking stopped...weird. Obviously, this is probably not what this little one has going on, but our bodies are strange and you just never know. Does she shake when she tries to point to something as well? If I remember correctly, that's what an Intention Tremor is called?

                  Also, to strengthen fine motor, it actually helps to work on core and upper arm muscles as well (per my daugther's kinder teacher). So, we did a lot of wheelbarrow walking with her (where she walks using her hands and I hold her feet up). And she spends a lot of time on the monkey bars (we have some in our house). Pushing a laundry basket around the house with heavy stuff in it can help and carrying heavy grocery bags for you can help her as well.

                  If the parents are refusing to acknowledge it and they say the doc doesn't seem concerned than there just isn't much you can do unless you want to try to help her gain strength yourself. Best of luck!!
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                    • mommyneedsadayoff
                      Daycare.com Member
                      • Jan 2015
                      • 1754
                      #6
                      I would do a lot of play dough, legos, manipulative play to try to strengthen her hands. It is best to see a doc to rule out anyour underlying issues, but any activities that help her hand strength may help too.
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                        • Thriftylady
                          Daycare.com Member
                          • Aug 2014
                          • 5884
                          #7
                          Originally posted by daycare
                          they have brought up to their doctor at each wellness check up, or so they tell me and every time they come back saying the doc is not concerned because we don't see it.

                          UGH
                          Time for a second opinion. And maybe ask if they would take a letter from you to the doctor.
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                            • spedmommy4
                              Daycare.com Member
                              • Mar 2015
                              • 935
                              #8
                              Differentiation and Diagnosis of Tremor
                              http://www.aafp.org/afp/2011/0315/p697.html
                              Tremor, an involuntary, rhythmic, oscillatory movement of a body part, is the most common movement disorder encountered in clinical practice. Rest tremors occur in a body part that is relaxed and completely supported against gravity. Action tremors occur with voluntary contraction of a muscle and can be further subdivided into postural, isometric, and kinetic tremors. All persons have low-amplitude, high-frequency physiologic tremors at rest and during action that are not reported as symptomatic. The most common pathologic tremor is essential tremor. In one-half of cases, it is transmitted in an autosomal dominant fashion, and it affects 0.4 to 6 percent of the population. More than 70 percent of patients with Parkinson disease have tremor as the presenting feature. This tremor is typically asymmetric, occurs at rest, and becomes less prominent with voluntary movement. Features consistent with psychogenic tremor are abrupt onset, spontaneous remission, changing tremor characteristics, and extinction with distraction. Other types of tremor are cerebellar, dystonic, drug- or metabolic-induced, and orthostatic. The first step in the evaluation of a patient with tremor is to categorize the tremor based on its activation condition, topographic distribution, and frequency. The diagnosis of tremor is based on clinical information obtained from a thorough history and physical examination. For particularly difficult cases, single-photon emission computed tomography to visualize the integrity of the dopaminergic pathways in the brain may be useful to diagnose Parkinson disease.


                              I would actually be more concerned about the shaking falling into the realm of neurological. (See article). You should not attempt to address it until you know what the issue is.

                              If you have a video and a good rapport with the parents, I would share the video. Just say, "dcm, I was taking a video of the kids and happened to get the hand tremor I mentioned to you. Would you like me to send you a copy?"

                              After that, the ball is in her court. You can give the parents the information but you can't make them access the resources.
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