Games and Didactic Exercises to Promote Graphomotor Development in Preschool Children in Children with Intellectual Disabilities

Introduction

Among the various activities that humans do, there are some that require great precision and coordination, such as writing. These skills are part of motor skills; that is, movement, motor behavior, motor skills, psychic development and social development. Motor skills is one of the activities considered relevant in the field of school life, as they facilitate others such as: writing, eating, using the computer, tying shoes, turning the pages of a book, properly grooming, combing hair, among others.

The systematic practice of physical exercises carried out correctly contributes favorably to the creation of habits and motor skills, to the strengthening of health, to raising the performance capacity and at the same time to the multilateral, harmonious development of the personality of children; It gives the little one joy, satisfaction when interacting with other children and adults, regulating behavior to feeling useful, cooperating with others planning and organizing games.

Psychomotor development is very important in the comprehensive education of children, since it is defined as the maturity of the psychic and motor aspects of the human being, which leads children to develop better in the environment that surrounds them [1]. Currently, psychomotor development occupies an important place in education; this is reflected in the learning routes in the area of social personal in which it is evidenced in the competencies, capacities and indicators that children must achieve.

Most of the skills that begin at this age allow the child to access a more complete and comprehensive development in the next school levels, as happens, for example, with writing. In preschool, it is required that upon completion the child be in a position to execute continuous strokes with some precision, adjusting to the line and to reproduce the shape correctly. According to the feature, all of which constitute calligraphic skills that are based on interaction of the perceptual- motor factors, the sociocultural experience, as well as the organization and direction of a teaching-educational process, which meets the necessary methodological requirements based on a complete and generalizing orientation.

The first manifestation of motor skills is play and as it develops, it becomes more complex with the stimuli and experiences lived, generating increasingly coordinated and elaborate movements. Children go through different stages before making a move. When their movements are born they are involuntary, then they become more rustic movements with little coordination and later they are capable of more controlled and more coordinated movements.

Children with intellectual disabilities are capable of making mental representations of what they see and observe, closely linked to their experiences and experiences, but it is more difficult for them to learn, understand and communicate than others. The ability to represent graphically, through drawings, the reality they see is also developed through stages or processes. For this reason, the activities will have an order of increasing complexity, for example, those that involve movements for modeling, paper crumpling, free tearing, will be easier than those for cutting or coloring; drawing straight lines will be easier than drawing circular shapes; modeling cylindrical shapes, throwing, capturing will be less complex than drawing round shapes or small details of an object.

It’s important pointing that: Intellectual disability is not a mental illness. Children with intellectual disabilities are citizens like the rest. Each of these children has particular abilities, tastes, dreams, and needs, just like other children. All children with intellectual disabilities have the possibility of progress if we give them the right supports [2].

Throughout the preschool age, different activities are developed that contribute to the development of the hand and with it that of fine motor skills or graphomotor skills. This paper is concerned with fine motor skills in children 4 to 5 years with intellectual disabilities, because of the attention to stimulate the writing, although it is known that the adoption of the position of digital clamp occurs at younger ages as a sign of the presence of fine motor development in infants from 0 to 3 years old. However, in children between 4 and 5 years old, greater control of their performance has been acquired, which allows them a higher level of independence [3].

Various investigations have been carried out on the subject, for example: Pérez, et al. [4] and Fuentes, et al. [5]. But these works are aimed at the development of motor skills and emphasize the importance of the psychomotor area in the intellectual development of the child. Other authors such as Yero, et al. and Ruiz, et al. [3, 6] have addressed motor skills, the first author proposes a group of actions for the family and the second a proposal of exercises and games for the development of motor skills, But in none of the cases is a methodology taken into account that allows for a better preparation of teachers and the family in this regard.

Research carried out by Galdámez, et al. [7] related to the motor skills of children from 1 to 6 years of age with intellectual disabilities refer to motor achievements in gross motor skills; however, fine motor skills are not addressed, elements that the author considers important to determine in order to assess how well this child is prepared for higher learning related to manual skills, specifically writing.

Materials and Methods

In spite of the research and work done, shortcomings are still in the development of fine motor skills in children with intellectual disabilities in the constituency 94 of the People’s Council “Heredia” in the center of the city of Santiago de Cuba. De hence the need for the study of the subject, because investigations as effectual to s not exhaust all care areas. The express desire of this work is to offer guidance to the executors and families of these children, to achieve a better and more varied spectrum of work in the development of fine motor skills.

Zausmer cited by Archila, et al. [8], made the following statements and criteria: Stimulation of fine motor skills (hand muscle) is essential before learning to read and write. If we analyze that writing requires motor coordination and training of the hands, we realize that it is of utmost importance that teachers perform a series of exercises, sequential in complexity, to achieve mastery and dexterity of the fine muscles of the fingers and toes hands.

Ajuriaguerro, et al. [9] expressed that in the exercises to develop fine motor skills, techniques that classify in graphs and not graphs should be used. The first ones are defined by the author as exercises to develop the fine motor skills necessary for learning to write and the non-graphic ones are characterized as those exercises aimed at improving precision, coordination, speed and control of hand movement. The so-called non-graphic techniques are: stringing, fitting, buttoning, braiding, trimming, gluing, tearing, assembling, closing and shaping.

It is necessary to bear in mind that the principles that govern graphomotor development are: Ontogenetic approach: it is related to the stages of evolution of graphics, analyzing the chronological appearance of the lines starting from their initial similarity with the real objects of life and their later stylization until reaching the current spellings and numbers. It takes into account how the use of graphic support evolves and how children’s ideas about writing evolve. This principle requires that the realization of simple graphomotor actions precede the more complex ones, in such a way that the graphemes are organized from the easiest in their link with drawings to the most difficult or abstract Approach to motor conditioning: it requires the execution of diverse and systematic sensory-motor acts, using the possible sensory systems, which leads to the formation of proprioceptive schemes.

Integrative approach: it is related to the dialectical integration of skill and meaningful learning approaches, this allows children to actively build their skills in the realization of graphemes in interaction with adults and their peers, giving a special value to these In addition, of these principles in the graphomotor development of children, the postulates of l must be taken into account. Vigotsky S, et al. [10] on the generic law of psychic development, the actions by the social significance of writing [11].

Relationship between affective and cognitive processes and teaching as the main source that leads to development [12].

The bibliographic antecedents consulted allowed us to observe the educational practice with these children with intellectual disabilities who present b in pre-writing activities, for example:

• Imprecision in the drawing of figures and graphemes
• Lack of visual-motor coordination
• Slowness in the path
• Lack of control in the muscles of the hand From the initial diagnosis, it was possible to verify the need to reinforce the graphomotor development in the children of the sample, for which these games and didactic exercises have been developed. It is conceived as a scientific problem: How to enhance the development of graphomotor ability in children with intellectual disabilities between 4 and 5 years of age through the teaching-learning process? The following object of study is proposed: the teaching- learning process of graphomotor development in children in children from 4 to 5 years old with intellectual disabilities. It is the objective: to develop a methodology for development graphomotor in children 4 to 5 years with intellectual disabilities, based on a c methodological oncepción of this process of teaching and learning, composed of four basic components that make up a system for the interrelationships they are established between them, depending on the fulfillment of the purpose of the whole system [13, 14, 15].

Research is considered hypothesis: if a methodology for developing development applies graphomotor children 4 to 5 years with intellectual disabilities, based on a c methodological oncepción that requires components and interrelationships of the process, it will promote the preparation of teachers and families for greater motor graph development in children from 4 to 5 years old.

The research has a quantitative and qualitative approach, in its theoretical and empirical methods were used, within them we must highlight.

Discussion and Results

To facilitate the execution of the skills of fine motor skills, play has an important place, although direct exposure to a certain activity or interaction with experienced adults who place themselves between the child and the external origins of the child can also be used stimuli, in order to facilitate appropriate learning blocks and habits, generally. In carrying out these games, the theoretical-methodological foundation of the “Psychopedagogical Program for the graphomotor development of preschool children” structured in three sections was also analyzed. It was considered to include the game proposal in the first two work sections of the program, since in the third there are the family orientation activities, in which they can be inserted from their validation and final generalization.

The teaching aids will be varied in correspondence with the exercises and games that children are going to perform to execute the fine movements of their hands, which can be plasticine, colored pencils, tempera, crayon, newspaper and colored papers, balls, flags, canes or any object that does not represent a danger to the child, you can also use your own hands to perform finger games.

Performers will demonstrate to families how important finger games are to achieving an agile and flexible hand, for example, opening and closing the hands to a rhyme or song, drumming with the fingers as if playing piano keys, make pairs with the fingers of each hand and join them and wait for them at intervals, make small translation movements with the fingers imitating the forms of locomotion of some animals.

Conclusion

The study carried out allowed corroborating the importance of the development of fine motor skills in preschool children to stimulate their subsequent foray into writing. Acting with objects with greater precision and dexterity allows them to perceive other contents that expand their knowledge and that are not always taken advantage of due to the ignorance and lack of preparation of the executors and family.

Stimulation of fine motor skills (hand muscle) or graphomotor skills is essential before learning to read and write. Writing requires coordination and motor training of the hands that can be stimulated from the games and exercises proposed, sequential in complexity, to achieve mastery and dexterity of the fine muscles of the fingers and hands in preschool children.