From Spoon Use And Chopsticks Manipulation To Handwriting

Fine motor skill is an important field of child movement development. Spoon use and chopsticks manipulation, as most usual motor skills, play a role not only in promoting children’s self-caring, but for children’s early development and other fine motor skills. While as important fine motor skills for school readiness, handwriting has direct relation to better scholastic performance, as advised that it should develop with self-care skills supported.Based on analysis on average EMG of four forearm muscles, flexor carpi radialis(FCR), flexor carpi ulnaris(FCU), extensor digitorum(ED) and flexor digitorum superficialis(FDS) and motor efficiency during spoon use, chopsticks manipulation and handwriting, this thesis focuses on attaining different movement characters among the three fine motor skills of preschoolers and schoolchildren, therefore, advancing some educational suggestions. Experiment1is a within-subject design, and different muscle activities and motor efficiency among spoon use, chopsticks manipulation and handwriting of preschoolers are compared; Experiment2is also a within-subject design, and different muscle activities and motor efficiency among spoon use, chopsticks manipulation and handwriting of schoolchildren are compared; Experiment3is a mixed design, and the different muscle activities and motor efficiency between schoolchildren and preschoolers are compared. Experiments find that:Firstly, differences and similarities of myoelectric activities exist among spoon use, chopsticks manipulation and handwriting within preschoolers. AEMG on FCR and FDS for chopsticks manipulation are highest among the three, spoon use ranking the third. Significant differences between handwriting and spoon use, handwriting and chopsticks manipulation skills for children at preschool were found; data shows no significant difference between handwriting and chopsticks manipulation. Paradise correlation analysis shows similarities between spoon use and chopsticks manipulation in on AEMG of FCR, ED and FDS.Secondly, for schoolchildren, analysis on AEMG of FCR, FCU and FDS shows significant difference between spoon use and chopsticks manipulation; Analysis on AEMG of FCR and FDS shows significant difference between handwriting and chopsticks manipulation; analyses on AEMG of the four muscles show no significant difference between handwriting and spoon use. Paradise correlation analysis shows that significant correlation between handwriting and spoon use exists on AEMG of FDS and ED; significant correlation between chopsticks manipulation and spoon use was found on AEMG of FDS and ED; and significant correlation on AEMG of ED between chopsticks manipulation and handwriting was also found.Thirdly, significant difference between spoon use and chopsticks manipulation between schooling stages was not found, which on account of similar difficulties of the two tasks. Muscle activities of FDS, FCR and FCU show significant differences on handwriting between the two schooling stages.In conclusion, both children in preschool and students at school acquired skilled spoon use, while preschoolers need more chopsticks manipulation practice; and preschool children have not acquired enough muscle power to control hand when they handwrite. The similarities of these three fine motor skills indicate that spoon use and chopsticks manipulation are good ways to make better school readiness.