The term fine motor skills refers to the ability to perform tasks requiring a high degree of precision and manual dexterity. Acitivities such as writing, drawing, playing tetris, and playing musical instruments such as the piano all depend on having good fine motor skills.

Fine motor activities are controlled by the coordinated motion of small muscles, and require more cognitive processing than gross motor activities such as running or swinging a baseball bat.

Children vary widely in the timing of fine motor skill development. Many fine motor activities need to be explicitly taught (handwriting), whereas gross motor activities (walking) are commonly learned by example.

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