Survey on actual situation and development of skillfulness of fingers /hands in early children

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24500922
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: General human life sciences
• Research Institution: Tokyo Gakugei University
• Principal Investigator: NARUMI Taeko 東京学芸大学, 教育学部, 名誉教授 (90014836)
• Research Collaborator: AKAISHI Motoko ; YAMAMOTO Saiko
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 手指の巧緻性 / 幼稚園児 / 幼児 / 学年差 / 男女差 / ビーズ通し

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We measured the development of infants' skillfulness of fingers/hands in their three years in kindergarten. We measured their level of skillfulness in fingers/ hands by (a) the time they took to fold origami and the degree of misalignment, (b) the time taken to move magnets on a board, (c) the time they took to tie and untie a piece of string, and (d) the number of beads they passed through a vinyl string per minute.
A cross-sectional analysis confirmed that the scores improved as the children's grades got higher for all index values, and that the girls had better scores than the boys in every grade. Also, a longitudinal analysis indicated that the development of girls' skillfulness of fingers / hands began at an earlier age than it did for the boys. Development in the first year of kindergarten was remarkable; the kindergarten experience where the children engaged in play and other activities had a marked affect on the development of their skillfulness　of fingers / hands.

Free Research Field

被服構成学