Mild delay usually equals gone in 6 mo.
No... it's nothing you did wrong (but quite frankly, even if you did, what good would it do fretting? But no. A MILD delay in ONE area??? Breeeathe, mama.).
You know how they say all kids develop differently? That's because they don't develop in a straight line. They leapfrog about. it's why you can have a 2yo speaking with hundreds of words in complete sentances, but not so good at the whole gross motor stuff, right next to a non-talking 2yo who is a little gymnast. But sooooo much more complex. And EACH of those two 2yos are NORMAL. Nothing wrong with them. They've just been really focusing on one area of their development BEFORE the other one. Kids skip about a bit, regress, and have 'explosions' (language explosions, cognitive explosions, etc.) Here's a short list of SOME of the areas their brains are working on. And NOT simultaeneously:
Audial
Visual
Cognitive
Emotional
Gross Motor
Fine Motor
Sensory receiving
Sensory integration
... and a couple things I'm forgetting.
Fine motor, so ya know, includes TALKING (tongue, lips, throat), facial expression, head angle, eating... and many many other things.
It sounds like there's only ONE area she'd a little behind the curve (probably because she;s AHEAD in other areas), and that's easily remedied:
- finger painting
- reverse finger painting (like drawing a shape in chocolate syrup on a plate, or shaving cream on a mirror or glass door)
- brush painting
- button pushing
- button fastening
- zipper pulling
- finger counting
- popcorn/cheerio eating
- CHOPSTICK using
- Coins in vending machine / toy cash register
- typing
- piano playing
- scissor cutting
- cooking prep (REAL kitchen, not a play one you just whack about giant pieces that can't even be held with just fingers)
- knot untying
- snap pinching
- finger puppets
- sorting trays
Most likely, she's never NEEDED to use fingers individually... her whole hand is fine, so that's what she uses.
Check out Montessori Sensory / Early Childhood development. A gazillion and one free "albums" are out there that work on fine & gross motor movement, spatial recognition, sensory integration, etc.
Here's a place to start:
http://jojoebi.blogspot.com/2009/07/montessori-links.html
& NOT free... but so you can get an idea about what certain things look like that are meant to handle thousands of kids using them over 50 years (neinhaus is holy grail montessori materials, TOTALLY unnecessary for home use)
http://www.nienhuis.com/index.php?target=categories&c...