Five Little Monkeys: Development of Finger Isolation and Dexterity

“My two-year-old isn’t able to show me how old he is with his fingers. When asked, he’ll consistently say ‘two’ but hold up five fingers. Is this normal?”

Did you know that it takes a looooong time for a child to learn how to move their fingers in coordinated and smooth movements, isolated from other finger and thumb movements? It takes much longer than you would think based on all the other cool things your child might already be able to do.

Your child should be able to run, jump, feed themselves, and even potty train before they’ll be able to isolate all the fingers in their hand and to control their thumb as an individual unit of movement. In fact, your child will likely be able to independently sing all the verses to “Five Little Monkeys” before they’ll be able to correctly do the corresponding counting hand motions.

Surprising, huh? But give it a try and you’ll see.

Experiment with Your Kids’ Finger Dexterity Skills

Ask your two-year-old to hold up one finger. They probably will. And it will probably be their pointer finger. Next, ask them to do combos of finger positions like two, three and four. Most likely, they’ll struggle. Ask for five, they’ll comply easily. Ask them to do a thumbs up, chances are they’ll again hold one finger up instead (their pointer finger).

Now, ask your three-year-old to do a thumbs up. They’ll comply with a lovely thumbs up. Next ask them to bend it, twirl it, move it side-to-side. Are they struggling? Probably!

Finally, ask your four-year-old to do these tasks. Most of them will be able to fly through it, no problems.

So, what’s going on?

What is Finger Isolation and Dexterity?

Colleen Beck, of The OT Toolbox, explains that “as infants, children tend to use the hand as one solid unit.” As children grow and develop, “they begin to use each finger individually” or to “isolate” that finger. “Finger isolation is the ability to…use the fingers one at a time in functional tasks,” she wrote (Beck, 2022).

Cambridge Dictionary defines dexterity as “the ability to use the hands skillfully in doing something” and “the ability to perform a difficult action quickly and skillfully with the hands” (“Dexterity,” 2022).

And, as you saw from our examples above, it can take a long time to get those finger isolation and manipulation skills down!

A Few Finger and Thumb Manipulation Milestones

Age	Milestone	Source
6 months	“uses a raking grasp (all fingers at the same time) to pick up small objects”	Children’s Health
9 months	“uses thumb and index finger (pincer grasp) to pick up small objects like Cheerios”	Children’s Health
12-14 months	“able to point finger at objects”	Children’s Health
25-36 Months	“display how old they are by holding up their fingers”	Baby Sparks
48+ months	wiggle thumb in “bending, circular, and back-and-forth movements”	BDI-3

Infants

Notice that babies six- to nine- months old are still using their fingers as a single unit. This means that all their fingers are doing the same thing at the same time. It’s not until after nine months that they start to isolate their pointer finger and use it with their thumb to pick up small-ish items. And it’s still several months after that until they are able to confidently and consistently use that same pointer finger to actually point!

Toddlers

Moving on to toddlers, as mentioned earlier, they’ll be doing all kinds of amazing things with both their bodies in general and their hands in specific that you might not realize that their fingers are still learning how to do their jobs! Between your child’s second and third birthdays they will be developing more fine motor control for things like making the “ok” sign, thumbs up, showing their age, etc. My two-year-old thinks he’s doing a beautiful “thumbs up” when actuality, he’s using his pointer finger. 🙂

Preschoolers

Finally, your preschooler might be cutting with scissors and writing their name before they’ll be able to fully move their thumb in all directions. My four-year-old is still working on moving his thumb in a circle, even though he just wrote the alphabet on the back of a paper Halloween pumpkin. Who would have thought it would take that long to learn?!

So, if your two-year-old is still struggling to make “two” with their fingers, give them some grace and don’t sweat it. Keep modeling for them without the expectation of their success for another year. And, if your three-year-old is singing “Five Little Monkeys” and every verse has a one or a five hand sign accompanying it, just keep singing and know that two, three, and four will follow soon.

Cheers!
Briana

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Hello! I’m Briana!