Thursday, January 27, 2011

Holding onto... STUFF!

One of the milestones that is hardest for Maddy to reach is her grasp. Her fingers simply do not bend at all the joints, and the joints that she CAN bend them at are very stiff. She cannot make a fist (and never will be able to), she cannot even touch her fingers to her thumb (she will be able to do  this in time with lots of practice! We physically have to do stretches on her fingers to help her improve her range of motion). I watch her sometimes and she seems to get so frustrated that she can't pick stuff up like she wants to. She bats away at things though and reaches (obviously with her short arms, her reach is not very far - which is a blessing in disguise when I'm eating dinner with her on my lap!) - sometimes she manages to hook something onto her fingers and can pick it up briefly with one hand. 

Recently, she has been able to hold things a little better by pushing it between her two hands. It needs to be something the right length, and not too heavy, since she doesn't have a great grip on it. She has loved her new-found freedom and this rattle pictured below is the perfect size and shape for her :)



10 comments:

  1. Go, Maddy! What a precious sweetie!

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  2. She looks SO happy and proud of herself in that second picture. What a cutie =)

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  3. She is so adorable. Way to go... She should be very proud of herself!

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  4. tears in my eyes. How inborn this striving to do what we can do is.

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  5. That's great. My son, Nate, has DD, too. He uses a 'scissor' grasp between his index and middle fingers, or a bracket grasp between his index and little fingers. As he has gotten older, he can do a grasp that is average, but with the same limitations that you mentioned, the object can't be of too big a size or too heavy.

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  6. Her eyes can smile! How lovely!

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  7. Love how she smiles in that last photo! Anne Katrine

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  8. looking at her pictures always makes me smile. She is absolutely adorable!!

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