We all know how important is it to work on cutting skills with your littles ones.

If you haven’t already, check out my post on cutting skills by clicking the link here. The post provides a step by step process with visuals on how to teach the most efficient and safest way to cut with your littles ones.

As I stated in that post, the skills involved in cutting work to improve performance in other functional activities as well. For example, cutting works on fine motor skills which strengthens the small muscles of the hands and is needed for legible handwriting. Cutting also works on eye-hand coordination (ie how well the eyes and hands can work together) which is important for tasks such as shoe-tying. In addition, cutting improves bilateral coordination, how well both hands are working together to achieve a task, which is essential for getting dressed and/or eating a meal.

For those children who are not yet ready to start cutting with the standard scissors, there are many transitional scissors available to help make the task easier. Here is a list of adaptive scissors and their uses for your child’s specific needs.

Loop Scissors

• Great for kids 3+.
• Appropriate for both righties and lefties.
• Benefits children who are working on hand strengthening.
• The child places their entire palm over the loop and practices opening/closing their hand while cutting.
• Easy for parents to provide hand over hand assist.

Lever Scissors

• Appropriate for ages 3+.
• These safety scissors have a blunt tip and can cut paper only, making it safe for preschoolers.
• The scissors also have a training lever near the hinge that opens the blades after each cut; flip the lever to traditional mode as your child gains confidence in cutting.
• Great choice when needing to grade up/down an activity (ie making the task of cutting simpler/more challenging).

Push Down Scissors

• Safety cover on the blades.
• Great for toddlers.
• Children can use their palms to open/close the scissors or form a lateral pinch (as shown in the pic).
• Children can also use these scissors by pressing down with one hand while having the scissors flat on the table. This is a great choice for kids with one-sided weakness (hemiparesis or hemiplegia) and may benefit from completing the task of cutting with one hand.

Helping Hand Scissors

• This 4 loop scissor helps a parent guide their child’s movement while cutting.
• The parent places their fingers in the outer loops and cuts with the child.
• Parents are able to assist without placing their hand directly on top of their child’s, which may be beneficial for children with tactile defensiveness (ie sensitive to touch).
• Children are able to experience how the cutting motion should feel like.

Two Different Size Loops

• It’s helpful to use scissors with two different sized loops as a way to provide a visual cue for appropriate finger placement.
• These scissors (shown below) have a small loop for the thumb and a slightly larger loop for the index, middle and sometimes ring finger.
• Be sure to check for left handed scissors for left handed children. Left handed scissors such as these have reversed blades so the top blade is always on the left making it easier for your left handed child to cut.

For more information on adaptive scissors that cater to your child’s specific needs, be sure to reach out by writing in the comment box or emailing us at madeha.ayub@seedsforspecialneeds.com.

See you in the next post!