Children struggle to hold pencils due to too much tech, doctors say

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

Maybe the ability to hold pencils it’s just not a skill  that’s valuable in
the future?

Like using goose quil

Dave

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 5:11 PM
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Children struggle to hold pencils due to too much
tech, doctors say
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>


Children struggle to hold pencils due to too much tech, doctors say
Children need opportunities to develop hand strength and dexterity needed
to hold pencils
By Amelia Hill
Feb 25 2018
<
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/25/children-struggle-to-hold-pencils-due-to-too-much-tech-doctors-say
>

Children are increasingly finding it hard to hold pens and pencils because
of an excessive use of technology, senior paediatric doctors have warned.

An overuse of touchscreen phones and tablets is preventing children’s
finger muscles from developing sufficiently to enable them to hold a pencil
correctly, they say.

“Children are not coming into school with the hand strength and dexterity
they had 10 years ago,” said Sally Payne, the head paediatric occupational
therapist at the Heart of England foundation NHS Trust. “Children coming
into school are being given a pencil but are increasingly not be able to
hold it because they don’t have the fundamental movement skills.

“To be able to grip a pencil and move it, you need strong control of the
fine muscles in your fingers,. Children need lots of opportunity to develop
those skills.”

Payne said the nature of play had changed. “It’s easier to give a child an
iPad than encouraging them to do muscle-building play such as building
blocks, cutting and sticking, or pulling toys and ropes. Because of this,
they’re not developing the underlying foundation skills they need to grip
and hold a pencil.”

Six-year-old Patrick has been having weekly sessions with an occupational
therapist for six months to help him develop the necessary strength in his
index finger to hold a pencil in the correct, tripod grip.

His mother, Laura, blames herself: “In retrospect, I see that I gave
Patrick technology to play with, to the virtual exclusion of the more
traditional toys. When he got to school, they contacted me with their
concerns: he was gripping his pencil like cavemen held sticks. He just
couldn’t hold it in any other way and so couldn’t learn to write because he
couldn’t move the pencil with any accuracy.

“The therapy sessions are helping a lot and I’m really strict now at home
with his access to technology,” she said. “I think the school caught the
problem early enough for no lasting damage to have been done.”

Mellissa Prunty, a paediatric occupational therapist who specialises in
handwriting difficulties in children, is concerned that increasing numbers
of children may be developing handwriting late because of an overuse of
technology.

“One problem is that handwriting is very individual in how it develops in
each child,” said Prunty, the vice-chair of the National Handwriting
Association who runs a research clinic at Brunel University London
investigating key skills in childhood, including handwriting.

“Without research, the risk is that we make too many assumptions about why
a child isn’t able to write at the expected age and don’t intervene when
there is a technology-related cause,” she said.

Although the early years curriculum has handwriting targets for every year,
different primary schools focus on handwriting in different ways – with
some using tablets alongside pencils, Prunty said. This becomes a problem
when same the children also spend large periods of time on tablets outside
school.

But Barbie Clarke, a child psychotherapist and founder of the Family Kids
and Youth research agency, said even nursery schools were acutely aware of
the problem that she said stemmed from excessive use of technology at home.

[snip]

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