Modarri Cars - All Their Benefits!

Modarri Cars have been a huge hit with my avid-car-fan sons. I personally enjoyed exploring all the "therapy" possibilities with these special cars, which have been designed for a STEM experience!

• Fine motor benefits 
  
• Visual-motor benefits  
  
• Planning and organizational benefits   
  
• Where to find Modarri Cars
  

Fine Motor Benefits

Modarri cars are dismantled and put back together again by means of a screwdriver and "embedded" screws - the screws can be loosened but they don't come all the way out. So you can't lose screws!

There are 9 screws on each car, if you take it apart all the way down to the chassis, and take the wheels off as well.

That gives lots of fine motor opportunities to kids who need to get their fingers working. In a therapy context, I would present the child with the dismantled pieces - so the child can design and build the car from scratch. That is 9 screws being put in.

After using the completed car for some visual motor fun, I would get the child to dismantle the car to be used by the next child - so 9 screws are being undone. That is quite a bit of fine motor work.

The cars are designed for kids age 6 and up, so they are great for motivating older kids to work on fine motor skills.

Working The Fingers

Depending on the child's fine motor abilities, the screwdriver can be held in a variety of ways, each of which makes slightly different demands on the finger and hand muscles, as can be seen from the pictures below:

Using the tips of the fingers to turn the screwdriver.

Stabilizing the screwdriver in the hand.

Stabilizing the screwdriver with the other hand.

The most challenging way to use the screwdriver is to isolate the tripod fingers (thumb, index and middle fingers) by holding down the ring and little fingers. The fingers can then be used in a walking motion to turn the screwdriver. (For more activities using the tripod fingers, head over to this page.)

Isolating the tripod fingers.

Using the tripod fingers in a walking motion to turn the screwdriver.

Forearm Pronation

Some children need help to isolate the forearm movement that gets the hand to move palm down (pronation). Creating games with screwdrivers has long been a favorite therapy activity to get this movement, but careful positioning with these cars can also work!

There are two aspects to getting good forearm pronation with the cars:

1. hold the screwdriver firmly, so no finger movements are being used
2. hold the shoulder and elbow steady, so no shoulder movements are being used.

The photos below show a child getting some good forearm pronation while using a screwdriver on a Modarri car.

Forearm in a neutral position before turning the screwdriver.

Forearm is pronating in order to turn the screwdriver.

Lifting the elbow like this will prevent forearm pronation, so discourage this position.

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Visual-Motor Benefits

Modarri cars are lovely to drive around a track, because they have real "suspension" and an innovative steering technique that responds intuitively to the child's finger on the driver's seat.

This means that they go around corners and change direction beautifully.

Steering a Modarri car is soooo easy!

You can draw your own racing track on a large sheet of paper, or use a ready-made car mat. I personally like to place the racing tracks on a table top, so the child can move freely around the table while "driving" the car.

The child will be using eye-hand coordination and visual-motor skills to keep the car on the track.

Increase the demand by creating a narrower track, or asking the child to "drive faster" while still staying on the track.

Working on visual motor and eye-hand coordination skills may help a child to more accurately trace a path with a pencil, or write between the lines. Read more about visual-motor integration here.

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Planning & Organizational Benefits

Each car comes with a couple of options for changing the design and body work.

The more cars you have, the greater the number of possibilities, and the more engaged your child will be on the construction task.

So many possibilities!

If your child struggles with organization and planning skills, designing a car can be a very positive experience. Help your child to verbalize the decision-making process as part of the experience - either in planning the design, or in explaining the design after it is completed.

If your child struggles to know where to start, narrow down the options by working with a specific color scheme, or with a specific type of car in mind (eg rally car), and then find the pieces that fit in with those choices.

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Where To Find Modarri Cars

Modarri Cars are readily available from most good toy shops as well as online. Or pop on over to the Modarri website for more information.

Please note that these cars are NOT suitable for small children. They are recommended for use by children age 6 years and older. This makes them ideal for motivating an older child to work on fine motor skills!

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