Infant hand function: birth to 6 months

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Newborn Upper Limb and Hand Function

Spontaneous movements and visual attention are important substrates for development

Spontaneous movements of the limbs and the ability to orient to visual and auditory events provide newborn infants with their first experiences of engaging with the social and physical environment.
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Infant 4-7 weeks: upper limb and hand development

Growing awareness of self in relation to environment

Start of shift from spontaneous movements to early intentional exploratory actions

Characteristics of upper limb and hand behavior in supine
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Reaching, grasping, manipulation: hand function newborn-8 weeks
From birth infants pay attention to their hands and soon after start to move their hands in the direction of toys within reach.
Upper limb and hand function: Will at 5 weeks
At 5 weeks Will has developed more control of his upper and lower extremity actions and his ability to stabilize the head and trunk to support these actions has improved.
Hand function 8-12 weeks

Overlapping phases and age norms
It is important to keep in mind that infant motor development does not occur as a progression of stages with standardized age norms, but rather as a cascade of emerging abilities, with each new ability building on acquired abilities. These phases overlap with individual infants having their own timetable for acquiring new abilities.
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Using the hands: 10-12 weeks exploring objects and toys
Reaching, batting and early exploration of interesting objects
Development of UL function: 8 weeks

To download the 6-8 week Observation Checklist click on the PDF download link at the bottom of the page
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Development of hand function: Will at 9 weeks
At 9 weeks Will's hand actions are starting to reflect typical visual and manual behaviors expected at 2 months:
Development of hand function: Will at 15 weeks
At 15 weeks (third month) Will displays the full range of hand and finger actions, as well as exploratory, grasp, transport and manipulation abilities typically seen in an infant of 3-4 months:
Will at 4 months - exploring toys
Using the hands to grasp, manipulate and inspect toys
Using the hands at 5 months
Reaching for, grasping and manipulation become more accurate and focussed.
Will (5 months 3 weeks) playing with links and a rattle
In this tutorial you see Will (5 months 3 weeks) playing with a two 2 plastic links and a rattle.
Using the hands:7-months
Shaking, inspecting, banging, passing from hand-to-hand
Exploring toys - new spiky ball
A small ball with spikes is an invitation to spend time exploring its properties.

Fundamental hand-object interaction: hold to stabilize, poking with index finger, turning toy for visual inspection, dropping toy,.
Social and attention: sharing pleasure

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