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Motor skills are divided into two groups, which control the movements of muscles in our body. Gross motor skills use the larger movements of our legs, arms, feet, which allow us to jump, run, or walk.

Whereas fine motor skills refer to smaller movements of our feet, toes, mouth, hands wrists and fingers. These let our fingers feel and grip small objects and the tongue to taste things. These motor skills both work together in coordination.

Newborn babies have little control of their hands, except to make a fist. Gradually the hands of the baby will flail about, and as they grow, they find their hands and play with their feet. Then their eyes start to see movement.

At first young children start to play or handle larger different colored building blocks with difficulty. At this stage, they will start using both motor skills in unison. They will eventually sit up and stretch out to pick up the blocks at the same time.

The child will learn to move them about and eventually will put two together. As their muscles strengthen, their coordination improves even more so that they try to stack blocks on top of one another. You may notice that your Child's fine motor skills do not compare to other children of their age, if you are worried seek medical help or advice.

Down syndrome children use building blocks to improve their motor skills. Every time a child picks up a block, he/she uses hand to eye coordination. Then by turning it over, he/she is fine-tuning the way they select the right block to use in a particular situation. The smaller the block the trickier and in depth they tune their motor skills.

These blocks can aid the tuning of motor skills of any age person. It helps them to pick up a pen or the way they hold a pen or paint brush. Without these skills, we couldn't achieve as many things in our adult hood.

Physical and occupational therapists use them for stroke patients to help recover from the loss of their muscular movements. For this therapy to succeed they work on the affected side of the brain and repeat the treatment several times a day.

Therefore, we should all buy our children different types of blocks and Lego toys to help them hone their motor skills.

Learn more about this author, Eileen Hughes.
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