Enhancing prehension in infants and children: fostering neuromotor strategies.
Phys Occup Ther Pediatr, 24 (1-2):
129--172 (2004)Abstract
Learning to reach for and manipulate objects requires considerable neuromotor control and flexibility. Through environmental and object exploration individual neuromotor strategies expand, and prehensile skills improve, as infants and children overcome constraints. Infants and children with prehensile deficits often have difficulty exploring objects and the environment, thus, may not sufficiently develop the strategies needed to expand their prehensile skills. This article reviews neuromotor factors that influence prehension development, discusses limitations to prehensile function and provides guidelines that can be used to examine and enhance prehensile behaviors in infants and young children based on a task-oriented approach addressing impairments, motor strategies and function.