NRS Healthcare Pen Grippers - Pack of 3

Product Information

The Pilot Penmanship Fountain Pen is a lightweight fountain pen with a smooth elongated body and purposefully indented grip for maximum comfort. And, possibly the best of all, you’ll get access to a secret challengers Facebook group, where you can share wins, chat about all things pencil grasp, and join a community of other therapists, parents and teachers working on pencil grasp issues. In this blog post, we’ll dive into pencil grips occupational therapy practitioners may offer as a tool to support handwriting needs.

The visuals will help parents and teachers understand grasp development and the goals for an appropriate grasping pattern. My prediction is that these tools will help get buy-in from the educational team and the family. It helps them understand exactly where the child is developmentally and where you, as the OT, wants the learner to head, and why! pencil grips and Occupational Therapy Being forced to use a lot of pressure to make a pen function can cause pain and discomfort when writing. But an ergonomically-designed writing tool really doesn’t require a lot of pressure on the paper to get the ink to run smoothly. Look for pens that use the weight of your hand while writing rather than those that require a tight-fisted grip. Advantages of vacuum grippers include the ability to handle many different types of items (even when those items are imperfectly positioned) and a lower price compared to other types of grippers. Disadvantages include added electricity costs to power compressed air or vacuum pumps and sensitivity to dusty conditions.In the mature pencil grasp stage, the child holds and maneuvers the pencil using mobility in the fingers or the hand.

Also, breaking up your activities into smaller chunks can prevent inflammatory conditions from causing pain flares. But if you cannot take a break from the writing activity, try using a writing utensil that keeps your hand from making a tight fist or keeps your fingers in a position that reduces stress such as the Penagain Ergosof Ballpoint Pen or the Pencil Grip Heavyweight Ballpoint Pen. If your hand looks like a claw or a fist, you are likely holding the pen too tightly. Straighten your fingers, letting the pen rest on your hand.Pen form is also important. Hands and wrists are put through the wringer each day, making them prone to injury. Here are some tips for optimal pen holding:

There is no need to force them to hold their pencil in a certain way. You'll find that they develop and progress through these stages as their muscles and posture get stronger. In occupational therapy sessions, the OT practitioner is striving to achieve the most effective and functional pencil grasp for each individual. A therapist may have 40, 50, or even 70 students on their school-based OT caseload…and each student will be completely different when it comes to grasp patterns, pencil pressure, positioning of the fingers, preferences, letter formation strokes, executive functioning skills, self-regulation, visual motor skills, sensory preferences, and handwriting considerations. All of these areas play into handwriting. Sometimes the easiest way to ensure a better grip on a pencil is by getting a smaller pencil into those hands. Golf pencils are some of the best tools for smaller hands, as they are the right size. The use of larger pencils and crayons leads to compensatory grasping patterns, as they are too long and too heavy for little hands to grasp and hold for long periods of time. A typical sized pencil in the hands of a child, is the equivalent of an adult trying to use a 12 inch pencil!

Therapy Benches

Overall, these grips will give you more control while reducing your hand fatigue. And, the unique design gently encourages your fingers and hand to rest in the tripod grip, which is the preferred gripping position by most therapists. That said, these grippers do tend to collect dirt easily and their bright colors may not be appropriate for all business settings, but we feel these issues are minor if they extend the life of your favorite writing tools.