Product Description

The updated and expanded 2nd edition of "Fine Motor Skills in Children with Down Syndrome" continues to be a popular, practical guide to understanding fine motor skills in children with Down syndrome and helping them develop these skills from birth through early adolescence. The first edition won a Parent's Choice Award in 1999. The author, an occupational therapist who has worked extensively with children with Down syndrome, is also the parent of a teenager with Down syndrome. She offers parents and professionals dozens of easy, home-and school-based activities, illustrated with black and white photos, which help children gradually acquire the skills they need for fine motor development. Readers learn how to incorporate work on fine motor skills into everyday activities and routines and to emphasise tasks that children can use throughout life - play, self-help, printing, cutting with scissors, and computer use. New to this edition is a chapter on sensory processing and how the sensory system affects behaviour and learning in children with Down syndrome. Parents learn strategies that can help children handle various sensory problems so they can continue to learn daily living skills. Bruni includes new information on determining when a child is ready for 'pre-printing' activities (things a child can do to prepare for trying to print letters) and how to introduce related concepts (up and down; top and bottom; start and stop; left and right). The 2nd edition also includes more information on ways to help children learn self-help skills, such as dressing, using a fork and spoon, and becoming potty trained. This new and improved edition gives parents and professionals the expertise and confidence they need to help children build fine motor abilities and become more independent. This book is useful for parents of children with Down syndrome, early intervention specialists, occupational and physical therapists, and teachers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59857 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 3.00 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 241 pages

Customer Reviews

Encourage yourself to help your child!!
This is a useful resource for carers of a child with Down Syndrome from infancy upwards. It not only deals with the prerequisites to necessary life skills but also the more detailed development of those skills themselves. The author, having had a child with Down Syndrome herself, has obvious awareness of how hard it is, for example, to enable floppy fingers to grasp and successfully use a pair of scissors. The chapters contain both the background information vital in understanding the tasks to be developed as well as ideas and tips on helping the child to attain them. The title may lead the reader to think that the contents would only apply to an older child but actually the book has lots of suggestions on how to help even a baby to start developing the building blocks that will enable success at later more complex tasks. The suggestions given are simple and manageable, they do not require hours of endless tuition but rather give a method for helping the child manage their normal meaningful day to day tasks. The book is informative, well presented, easy to read and realistic in its suggestions. My only criticism is that I felt that it could have contained more ideas and explanations, especially as my child has already past the baby stage.