Visual Motor Skills By Age

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This resource includes visual motor skills by age and lists visual motor integration developmental milestones. Visual motor development is part of hand eye coordination skills that happen from a very young age. From shaking a rattle and reaching for baby toys, to holding a pencil and writing letters, the developmental milestones are something to guide functional skill achievement! Let’s explore these visual motor developmental milestones!

Visual motor developmental milestones

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Visual Motor Skills by Age

If you’ve followed along with us here at The OT Toolbox, then you know that I love to pull my background as an occupational therapist into posts.  The crafts and activities that we do are more than just fun and cute.  There are important skills that a child develops through play.

Visual Motor Skills are needed for many functional tasks like handwriting and pencil use, scissor use clothing management, and many more tasks. 

How does Visual Motor Integration develop in kids?  We put together this list of  developmental milestones  for a general idea of development and so parents can tell when a problem might be present.  

It is important to note that every child is different and every child develops differently.  These milestones are organized by developmental stages.  Be sure to contact your pediatrician for medical advice. If occupational therapy is needed to assist with delays in visual motor integration, an assessment from a licensed occupational therapist is necessary to determine individual needs and treatment.

This hand eye coordination activities for toddlers post has more ideas.

What is visual motor integration?

Visual motor integration is often times presented a Hand eye coordination.  It is the ability to use your hands and eyes together in a coordinated manner.  


However, visual motor integration has some difference: The visual perceptual skills that are necessary for the visual component of visual motor skills play a major part in perceiving and interpreting visual information.

With skill achievement comes greater precision and finger dexterity, as well as the motor planning needed in order to accomplish more difficult tasks.

Visual motor development is needed for many functional tasks:

  • Shake a rattle
  • Reach for toys
  • Bring toys to the mouth
  • Reach for a face when held (babies)
  • Pick up food from a high chair tray
  • Reach for a bottle or cup to the mouth and putting it back down
  • Releasing objects or toys (babies dropping things from their high chair continuously and love seeing someone older pick it up and put it back so that they can drop it again reinforces this skill)
  • Coloring with crayons- progression of coloring skills happens with age along the milestone achievement
  • Scribbling
  • Playing with toys- shape sorters, puzzles, cause and effect toys, etc.
  • Holding a pencil and drawing shapes, forming letters- This level of visual processing is necessary for copying forms and identifying inconsistencies in written work. It plays a part in letter reversals and letter formation.  
  • Cutting with scissors
  • Navigating stairs
  • Throw a ball
  • Catch a ball
  • Pouring and scooping
  • Using utensils- progression from spoon, to fork, to knife- Check out this resource on how to hold a spoon and fork for specifics.
  • Riding a bike
  • So many more tasks that require visual motor skills!

In eye-hand coordination specifically, the eyes and hands work together to move the pencil, catch a ball, thread beads on a pipe cleaner, or other tasks that require the eyes and hands to fluently coordinate in actions.

You can see how, with development of both the eyes and motor skill dexterity and strength of the hands, feet, core, and legs allows for progression of skills.

The visual component and the motor skills begin working together at a very young age and continue to develop in efficiency as a child grows.  This is visual motor development!

Visual Motor integration and developmental milestones
Visual Motor and Developmental Milestones
visual motor skills by age

Developmental Milestones for Visual Motor Integration 

These visual motor developmental milestones are listed by age of typical development, however, these are general guidelines of development. There can be many other considerations impacting skill achievement. If a child hasn’t achieved a skill by the dates listed below, it’s not a huge issue. It could be that the path to skill progression is varied, and that’s ok!

If you have questions about these milestone skills and dates, especially if it seems there are many skills that aren’t being achieved within months of the dates listed below, it may be beneficial to seek out input and individualized evaluation from a pediatric occupational therapy professional.

Resources may include our parent toolbox, getting started with OT, and what you need to know about child development.

ONE MONTH:

  • Tracking a rattle while lying on back                
  • Tracking a rattle to the side                

TWO MONTHS:

  • Infant regards their own hands
  • Tracks a ball side to side as it rolls across a table left to right and right to left
  • Tracks a rattle while lying on back side to side

 THREE MONTHS:

  • Extends hands to reach for a rattle/toy while lying on back

   FOUR MONTHS:

  • Reaches to midline for a rattle/toy while lying on back
  • While lying on back, the infant touches both hands together.

SIX MONTHS:

  • Brings hands together to grasp a block/toy while sitting supported on an adult’s lap
  • Extends arm to reach up for a toy while laying on back

   SEVEN MONTHS:

  • Transfers a block/toy from one hand to the other while sitting supported on an adult’s lap.
  • Touches a cereal piece with index finger
  • Bangs a toy on a table surface while sitting supported on an adult’s lap

NINE MONTHS:

  • Claps hands together

TEN MONTHS:

ELEVEN MONTHS:

TWELVE MONTHS:

  •  Turns pages in a board book
  • Imitates stirring a spoon in a cup

THIRTEEN MONTHS:

  • Imitates tapping a spoon on a cup
  • Begins to places large puzzle pieces in a (Amazon affiliate link) beginner puzzle (affiliate link)

FOURTEEN MONTHS:

  •   Scribbles on paper

SIXTEEN MONTHS:

  •   Imitates building a tower of 2-3 blocks (affiliate link)

NINETEEN-TWENTY MONTHS:

  •  Builds a block tower, stacking 4-5 blocks (affiliate link)

TWENTY THREE-TWENTY FOUR MONTHS:

TWENTY FIVE-TWENTY SIX MONTHS:

  • Removes a screw top lid on a bottle
  • Stacks 8 blocks (affiliate link)
  • Begins to snip with scissors

TWENTY SEVEN-TWENTY EIGHT MONTHS:

  • Imitates horizontal strokes with a marker
  • Strings 2 Beads (affiliate link) (read about fine motor skills with beads for more ideas to support this development)
  • Imitates folding a piece of paper (bending the paper and making a crease, not aligning the edges)

TWENTY NINE MONTHS:

  • Imitates building a train with blocks
  • Strings 3-4 Beads (affiliate link)
  • Stacks 10 blocks (affiliate link)

THIRTY ONE MONTHS:

  • Builds a “bridge” with three blocks (affiliate link)

THIRTY THREE MONTHS:

  • Copies a circle

THRITY FIVE MONTHS:

  • Builds a “wall” with four blocks (affiliate link)

THIRTY SEVEN MONTHS:

  • Cuts a paper in half with scissors

FOURTY MONTHS:

FOURTY TWO MONTHS:

  • Cuts within 1/2 inch of a straight line
  • Traces a horizontal line

FIFTY MONTHS:

  • Copies a square
  • Cuts a circle within 1/2 inch of the line
  • Build “steps” with blocks (affiliate link)

FIFTY FOUR MONTHS:

  • Connects two dots to make a horizontal line
  • Cuts a square within 1/2 inch of the line
  • Builds a “pyramid” with blocks (affiliate link)

FIFTY FIVE MONTHS:

  • Folds a piece of paper in half with the edges parallel
  • Colors within lines
 
 
What is Visual Motor Integration?  This blog has a lot of information on visual motor integration developmental milestones and activities for kids.
 
 
 
This post contains affiliate links.  You can read our full disclosure here.

 


Activities to help develop visual motor integration

When it comes to play, visual motor integration is part of every play activity. Some informative resources that include the sensory motor integration of visual input and motor output include the underlying skills that are all related.

These specific activities will support visual motor skills and visual motor skills play a pivotal role in these areas:

            

Developmental milestone achievement in children occurs through play. Use these play ideas to get you started on building skills:

Some more of our favorite OT activities for supporting development of visual motor skills includes:

Blue-Themed Sensory Play for Babies and Toddlers

Fine Motor Play with Tissue Paper

Baby Brain Building

Invitation to Scoop and Pour

Baby Ice and Bath

Playing With Color

Learning Apples and Red

Learning Colors Cup Play

Cups and Spoons

Tracing Letters: Letter Formation Handwriting Practice with Chalk

Tracing Lines with a DIY Light Box

Pencil Control Worksheets You Can Make At Home

Christmas-Themed Pencil Control Activities-DIY Worksheets for Pencil Control

Line Awareness with Beads 

Scissor Skills: Activities for Kids

Improving Scissor Skills with Play Dough

Cutting Foam Beads

Using  Stickers to Help with Scissor Skills

Finger-painting Fireworks for Scissor Use

Icicle Winter Scissor Skills Activity

Bunny Tongs Scissor Skills Activity

Color Sorting Scissor Activity

Use the fine motor kits to support development of visual motor skills and visual perception development through hands-on, play-based activities:

Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.

Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:

Or, grab one of our themed Fine Motor Kits to target skills with fun themes:

Want access to all of these kits…and more being added each month? Join The OT Toolbox Member’s Club!

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visual motor skills by age

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