Our hands are centrally involved in many of our daily activities. Reaching for objects and grasping and manipulating them usually is an almost effortless activity. Whatever our hands do, it always appears very simple to us. Yet, as children we need many years to learn how to use our hands in increasingly sophisticated ways to feel, explore, grasp, and manipulate objects. Later on, we learn to use a large variety of tools to extend our manual capabilities even further and to connect them with various cognitive skills such as writing or the playing of musical instruments. Our hands are also important mediators of social contact: from early childhood, they are crucial to get into touch with and to feel others, to signify affection, and to enrich our communication with gestural expression.
© 2015 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.