Children’s Hand Skills Framework (CHSF)

  • The Children’s Hand Skills Framework (CHSF) is used as a conceptual guide to analyze and describe children’s hand skills in the assessment and intervention process. The CHSF divides children’s hand skill use into six major categories, based on the extent to which the hands contact objects/parts of the body or not. The first two categories are manual gesture and body contact hand skills that do not contact specific objects. The following three categories are object-related hand skills that involve arm-hand use (including the skills of reaching, turning, carrying, throwing, catching, moving and stabilizing of objects), adaptive skilled hand use (including the skills of grasping, holding, in-hand manipulating, releasing and isolated finger movements), and bimanual use (including transferring, using both hands together simultaneously, and using both hands cooperatively). The final category describes the general quality (including accuracy, pace, and movement quality) of children’s hand skills. The CHSF is conceptually compatible with the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health, providing a holistic view when considering assessment and intervention of the impact of hand skill problems/difficulties in children. In evaluation, therapist can analyze and establish children’s initial hand skill profiles by using the CHSF in combination with a test battery of appropriate standardized and non-standardized instruments. Therapists can also further use the CHSF to choose appropriate facilitation or compensatory interventions/programs/techniques, based on the hand skills that children need to improve or adapt.

Summarized by

  • Will Chien

Type

  • Framework

Population

  • Child

Disability

  • All

Domain of occupation

  • Unspecified

Application Note

  • There is a hand skill assessment (i.e., the Assessment of Children’s Hand Skills) that has been developed specifically based on this framework.

Key Reference

  • Chien, C. W., Brown, T., & McDonald, R. (2009). A framework of children's hand skills for assessment and intervention. Child: Care, Health and Development, 35, 873-884.

Year Published

  • 2009

Primary Developer

  • Chi-Wen Chien

Primary Developer Email

  • ocatpickup@yahoo.com.tw

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Model Type

Population

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Domain of Occupation

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