ROANOKE, Va. – Children are coming into school struggling to hold a pencil due to the use of touch screens, according to The Guardian.
Now more than ever before, The Guardian says that parents are giving their children tablets and touch-screen phones to play with instead of building blocks and other muscle-building toys.
“To be able to grip a pencil and move it, you need strong control of the fine muscles in your fingers,. Children need lots of opportunity to develop those skills," Sally Payne, the head pediatric occupational therapist at the Heart of England Foundation NHS Trust told The Guardian.
Mellissa Prunty, a pediatric occupational therapist who specializes in handwriting difficulties in children, told The Guardian that she is concerned about the increasing number of children who may be developing handwriting late because of an overuse of technology.
Schools are incorporating tablets and other touch-screen technologies into their teaching, however, the fundamentals of using a pencil to write are still very much present in the classroom, according to The Guardian.
In order for parents to avoid this lack of muscle in their child's fingers, The Guardian suggests that more building blocks, pulling toys and ropes along with other muscle-building toys, should be given to children instead of touch-screen technologies and tablets.