Tag Archive for: dressing

Dressing Skills: Developmental Steps for Kids

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Dressing may seem like a simple task, but it is actually a task that requires multiple skill sets from children. Dressing requires skills girl dressing such as fine and gross motor coordination, body awareness, bilateral coordination, right/left discrimination, postural stability, and motor planning. As a parent, it can be difficult to know at what age a child should develop certain skills in dressing.

Developmental steps of self-dressing skills in children*:

1 year:

  • Pulls off shoes
  • Removes socks
  • Pushes arms and legs through garments

2 years:

  • Helps pull down pants
  • Finds armholes in pullover shirts
  • Removes unfastened jackets
  • Removes untied shoes

2.5 years:

  • Removes pull-down elastic waist pants
  • Unbuttons large buttons
  • Puts on front button shirt

3 years:

  • Puts on socks and shoes (though it might be the wrong feet or socks upside down)
  • Puts on pullover shirts with some help
  • Buttons large buttons
  • Pulls down pants
  • Zips and unzips with help to place on track

3.5 years:

  • Identifies front of clothing
  • Snaps fasteners
  • Unbuckles belt
  • Buttons 3-4 buttons at a time
  • Unzips jacket zipper

4 years:

  • Removes pull over shirts without help
  • Buckles belt
  • Zips jacket
  • Puts on socks correctly
  • Identifies front and back of clothing

5 years:

  • Dresses alone
  • Ties and unties knots

6 years:

  • Ties bows and shoelaces

According to Jayne Shepherd (2005), achieving independence in dressing may take up to 4 years. During this time, parents gradually perform fewer of the tasks, and encourage their children to do more, with the ultimate goal of independence.

*Source:

Shepherd, J. (2010). Activities of daily living and adaptations for independent living. In J. Case-Smith, (Ed.), Occupational therapy for children (5th ed., p., 501). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Mosby.

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Making School Day Routines Easier with a Schedule

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With school in session, it is important to solidify those morning, after school, and nighttime routines.  Using schedules provides predictability, encourages independence, and aids in transitions with your child.

Mother and daughter planning a schedule

Here are some quick tips to help make morning and nighttime routines easier with a schedule:

Types of Schedules:

A schedule can be created for any routine, such as bathroom, dressing, leaving for school, or after school routines.  For example, “Eat breakfast, brush teeth, and grab backpack” can be used for a morning routine, or “Eat snack, do homework, have 20 minutes of free time” could be used for an after school routine.

Location of the schedule:

Schedules should be placed where they are most accessible to your child.  If you are trying to promote independence while dressing, place a schedule on your child’s closet or dresser.  Bathroom schedules can be placed on a mirror, and morning/after school schedules can be placed on the refrigerator or door.

Using Pictures:

Pictures are great visuals for younger children or children who have difficulty understanding spoken language. Pictures can be drawn on a dry erase board or mirror, found on a computer (i.e., Google images), or cut out from a magazine.

Including your child:

Encouraging your child to help create his or her own schedule will increase comprehension and motivation for the responsibilities.  It is important to complete schedules before the routine begins.  For example, morning and after school schedules should be completed the night before.  Night schedules could be completed before dinner.  Your child should manipulate his or her schedule by moving pictures from the “to do” to the “all done” pile, or crossing off written tasks.

Flexibility:

Having some flexibility with your child’s schedule is okay, as long as the schedule is set before the routine begins and the arranged schedule is followed.  Rearranging the sequence of tasks, giving your child choices, and introducing new activities allow for flexibility within schedules.

Setting routines and implementing schedules should help make life a little easier.  If you have any suggestions that make your morning, afternoon, and nighttime routines easier, please share them below.

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How to Promote In-Hand Manipulation in Everyday Activities with Kids

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In-hand manipulation skills are important for many everyday tasks, such as eating, writing, dressing, playing, and drawing. With all the busy schedules these days, it is often hard to find time to practice such skills enough.Mother practices hand manipulation with daughter

Here are ten ways to encourage development of in-hand manipulation through tasks and activities that you and your children already do!

  1. When putting change into a piggy bank, have your child pick up several coins with her fingers, one at a time, and transfer them onto her palm. With all of the coins securely held in her palm, she should then transfer one coin at a time into the bank.
  2. Play board games or any game involving small pieces (for example, connect-4). Have your child hold all the pieces in her hand, transferring pieces from her palm to her fingers, one at a time, as needed for the game.
  3. While eating snacks, have your child hold multiple small pieces in her hand, letting go of one at a time. Also, while eating a larger snack like a chip, have your child rotate it in-hand (turn it in a circle) before eating it.
  4. Use tongs or tweezers to pick up game pieces. You can also use them for crafts!
  5. Encourage your kid to do buttons, skips, and snaps independently or help you with yours.
  6. Ask your child for help with various baking and cooking tasks such as rolling bread or shaping cookies. She can also use tubes of frosting to help decorate cakes and cupcakes.
  7. If you are about to enjoy a pop, ask your child to help you open it. Do the same for opening and closing bottles or jars of various sizes.
  8. While drawing, place the crayon inverted (upside down) on the table so that your child has to turn it around with one hand before drawing.
  9. Complete a puzzle together. While figuring out where the pieces go, encourage your child to use one hand to rotate a piece until it fits in a spot.
  10. When writing with a pencil, practice rotating it around to erase with one hand or have races to see who can “shift” their hand down the pencil the fastest.

Do not let a learning opportunity pass you by! Keep an eye out for these everyday opportunities that can promote continued development of in-hand manipulation skills for your children. Without any planning, you can still easily help your children blossom and reach their full potential!

For more information on in-hand manipulation, see my previous blog.

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Differences and Similarities Between Occupational and Physical Therapy | Pediatric Therapy Tv

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In today’s Webisode, a pediatric occupational therapist explains ways to distinguish between occupational and physical therapy and how they are similar.

In this video you will learn:

  • To determine the differences between physical and occupational therapy
  • How the two disciplines are alike
  • What types of therapies are used for the different disciplines

Video Transcription:

Announcer: From Chicago’s leading experts in pediatrics to a worldwide
audience, this is Pediatric Therapy TV where we provide experience and
innovation to maximize your child’s potential. Now your host, here’s Robyn.

Robyn: Hello, and welcome to Pediatric Therapy TV. I’m your host, Robyn
Ackerman, and I’m standing here with Lindsay Miller, a Pediatric
Occupational Therapist. Lindsay, people are often confused between physical
therapy and occupational therapy. Can you explain with the differences and
similarities are between OT and PT?

Lindsay: Sure. With occupational therapy, we usually work on independence
with self-care skills, and these are skills like dressing and bathing. We
also work a lot on fine motor skills as well. So that’s any sort of
movement using your hands and fingers like writing, coloring, using
scissors, using a fork and knife, those types of things. Traditionally,
physical therapists work on mobility, so that’s walking, running, jumping,
and other gross motor tasks that use the larger muscles of the body. In the
pediatric realm, occupational therapists also work on executive functioning
skills, so those are our thinking skills and our thinking processes, and we
also work on sensory processing as well, so that’s how children react
emotionally and behaviorally to their environment and their surroundings.
In the pediatric world, physical therapists also work a lot on mobility
again and also gross motor development. So that’s, can your child crawl and
can they get themself up into standing and those sorts of things.

Some of the similarities are that occupational and physical therapy both
can look at muscle strength, flexibility, range of motion, and muscle tone,
but the biggest difference is really how we look at those things and in
what context. So occupational therapists look at those muscle strength and
flexibility and those types of things and how they affect functioning and
daily life whereas physical therapists look at those things and how it
affects mobility and gross motor skills. So overall, there is some overlap
between occupational and physical therapy, but the biggest difference is
really how they look at it in terms of functioning.

Robyn: All right. Thank you so much, Lindsay, and thank you to our viewers.
And remember, keep on blossoming.

Announcer: This has been Pediatric Therapy TV, where we bring peace of mind
to your family with the best in educational programming. To subscribe to
our broadcast, read our blogs, or learn more, visit our website at
learnmore.me. That’s learnmore.me.