Fine Motor Skills

Difficulty with fine motor tasks is commonly associated with autism. I think it’s another one of those things that isn’t caused by autism itself, but something that tends to appear along side it. When I first started working with my autistic boy, I was not able to see just by watching him that he had fine motor difficulties. He couldn’t tie show laces and he preferred to eat with his fingers, but then he was only four. If someone’s arm is bandaged making movement difficult, you can see it and make allowances. But like other aspects of autism, fine motor problems are something felt on the inside and are not obvious to others.

I began to think about fine motor issues when I began taking more notice of how I used my hands. My handwriting is pretty much illegible unless I write in capitals. I could write fairly neatly when I learnt at school, although I could never achieve the nice, evenly spaced, rounded letters my friends did. It was still readable. I have since lost this skill.

It’s a bit like speech in that respect, while I was having the elocution lessons my pronunciation improved drastically. But slowly over the years I’ve lost some of what I learnt. My speech can be broken and garbled especially when I‘m tired or not paying enough attention to it.

The mother of my autistic boy told me he might be orally dyspraxic. Because I find speech difficult, particularly pronouncing consonants, I thought maybe I had this problem. But thinking about it now, I wonder if it isn’t just a fine motor problem. Dyspraxic is when you can’t co-ordinate your movements, my problem is actually producing movement.

Poor handwriting on it’s own doesn’t indicate a fine motor problem, or dyspraxia. I think most of my teachers had very poor handwriting, I know we struggled to read their comments on our work. Strangely though if they wrote on the blackboard their handwriting was always neat. It’s like they had two styles of writing. When I was at school we always thought of messy writing as an indication of cleverness. Because older people and clever people had messy writing.

Now I have a laptop, so I write much less with a pen than I used to. Using a laptop with a shallow keyboard is much easier than writing with a pen as most of the action to hit the keys comes from my knuckles and I don’t have to bend my fingers as much. I’m quite fast on a keyboard.

It’s not just writing though that I have problems with. I’m always a bit self conscious of my hands, I never know where to put them because I don’t know how to hold them. When I‘m walking I don‘t like having them by my sides, you have to take up a posture of some sort. I prefer to put them in my pockets, so I like to have jackets with pockets. If I don’t have any pockets I will probably cross my arms. I like having a bag to hold, even if it’s one I carry over my shoulder, because I’ve at least got a strap to hold onto to. Wearing gloves is nice because it’s less obvious what your doing with your hands. I think part of the problem is the movement in my fingers. They feel a bit numb, it’s similar to the sensation in my lips when I’m struggling with pronunciation (which is why I think this might also be a fine motor thing).

When I’m sitting with someone I tend to find a hand position and to keep it. I’ve copied most of these off my Nan (not consciously). My Nan is very conservative, she sounds a bit posh when you speak to her. The way she holds herself, including her hands is quite stiff and formal. I’ve picked up her mannerisms because they are easy to imitate. The only downside is that this makes me appear stiff and formal too.

I’ve notice since my diagnosis that the problems with my hands have got a bit worse. I think the reason for this can be demonstrated by a simple analogy. Imagine you’ve had a very demanding job, working 40 hours a week without a holiday for more than ten years. It‘s a job you‘re pretty bad at and you never seem to get any better. Then someone tells you there has been an error and this isn’t your job you were meant to be something else, so they are going to change your job to something more suitable. Wouldn’t you feel like I’m never going to that work again! I think that’s how my fingers feel.

I find myself grabbing at things rather than taking the time to think and pick them up properly. It’s like my brain is trying to figure out new ways of doing things that will take less effort. It’s like all my life I’ve existed in this over tired, over stressed, really tense state without knowing why and now I’m learning to relax and not trying to keep up with everyone else.

When I worked with my autistic boy I saw he used to drop things a lot. Sometimes he would throw them. Most of the times this wasn’t in anger. He would pick up a toy, play with it for a bit then drop it and pick up something else. The floor of his session room would quickly become littered with toys and I would be constantly tidying up. One of things we taught him was what ‘tidy up’ meant. And we did go through a period of trying to get him to put stuff away after he had dropped it, although I wasn’t very strict with this. I sympathise with him now, think most of this was down to his fine motor issues and he had much greater difficulties in this area than I do. I’m able to tie shoelaces and hold a pen. No one notices my difficulty, except probably that I’m a bit stiff.

It’s not just my hands that are a problem, my feet too can trip me up. I was always being told as a child not to drag my feet. Of course, now I’m an adult I can drag my feet as much as I like! Don’t think though this is something I do out of laziness. My Mum told me once I had talipes when I was born. It wasn’t very severe and as the only way they can fix it is to break the bones in your legs and put you in plaster my Mum decided not to have anything done. She told me when we saw a child on a bus who was in plaster like this. I think she thought I would pleased that she told the doctors not to do anything She had an old fashioned view of doctors, that you shouldn’t go unless you were dying. Actually I was gutted, okay so I can walk okay and I don’t fall over, but I might not have this strange walk I have.

I mention this here because I was wondering if motor skills might be responsible for me having two left feet. It’s very difficult to determine the reason for things when there are so many possible causes. When it comes to walking you have to have good spatial awareness, good balance and be able to co-ordinate and move the muscles in your body in the way you want. I think it’s a possibility.