Document Type

Capstone

Abstract

Pediatric occupational therapists working with students in a school-based setting are consistently facing challenges with time management due to their high caseload numbers and limited documentation time in school-based settings. Along with time constraint issues, schoolbased occupational therapists find it difficult to communicate with caregivers on the skills being practiced in the school setting due to limited face-to-face time with caregivers. Children continue to require therapeutic services in school-based settings, however as occupational therapists continue to take on more responsibilities in this setting it becomes more challenging to find time to provide effective and efficient means to educate and reinforce proper fine motor skills across varied contexts. Fine motor skills involve the movement of smaller muscle groups in the hands, fingers, and wrists. They are essential to not only occupations in a school environment, but also most occupations performed in a child's daily routine including play, leisure exploration, feeding, dressing, and other self-help areas. Difficulty with fine motor skills can have a detrimental effect on academics and social-emotional development of a child especially considering as much as 60% of a student's school day is spent carrying out fine motor tasks (Jackman & Stagnitti, 2007). The purpose of this capstone project is to increase caregiver knowledge of basic fine motor skills and to reinforce these skills in the home environment for preschool and kindergarten-age children using video supports created by an occupational therapy Master's student. The videos were designed to be easily accessible from the caregiver's home and simple supplies were used throughout the videos for convenience and to build caregiver confidence. Caregivers of the preschool and kindergarten-age children were asked to take a pre-test, watch a video regarding fine motor skills, and trial the new skills they have learned for a week. They were then asked to watch a second video on fine motor skills, trial the new skills they have learned for a week, and then take the post-test survey to determine if they felt the videos were advantageous toward the promotion of fine motor skills and beneficial for at-home carryover. If caregivers felt they needed additional supplies to trial at home during the duration of this project, a PDF document was created and made accessible for all participants that included opportunities for coloring, cutting, and tracing. After data collection, it was determined that all ten participants in this capstone project felt fine motor videos were overall a beneficial resource for the promotion of fine motor skills in home-based environments.

Publication Date

4-12-2021

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