Fine motor skill or dexterity is the coordination of small muscles in movement with the eyes, hands and fingers. The complex levels of manual dexterity that humans exhibit can be related to the nervous system. Fine motor skills aid in the growth of intelligence and develop continuously throughout the stages of human development.

Motor skills are movements and actions of the bone structures. Typically, they are categorised into two groups: gross motor skills and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills are involved in movement and coordination of the arms, legs, and other large body parts. They involve actions such as running, crawling and swimming. Fine motor skills are involved in smaller movements that occur in the wrists, hands, fingers, feet and toes. Specifically, single joint movements are fine motor movements and require fine motor skills. They involve smaller actions such as picking up objects between the thumb and finger, writing carefully, and blinking.

Through each developmental stage, motor skills gradually develop. They are first seen during infancy, toddler-hood, preschool and school age. "Basic" fine motor skills gradually develop and are typically mastered between the ages of 6–12 in children. Fine motor skills develop with age and practice. If deemed necessary, occupational therapy can help improve overall fine motor skills.

Early fine motor skills are involuntary reflexes. The most notable involuntary reflex is the Darwinian reflex, a primitive reflex displayed in various newborn primates species. These involuntary muscle movements are temporary and often disappear after the first two months. After eight weeks, an infant will begin to voluntarily use fingers to touch. However, infants have not learned to grab at this stage.

Hand–eye coordination begins to develop at two to five months. Infants begin to reach for and grasp objects at this age. In 1952, Piaget found that even before infants are able to reach for and successfully grasp objects they see, they demonstrate competent hand-mouth coordination. A study was done by Philippe Rochat at Emory University in 1992 to test the relation between progress in the control of posture and the developmental transition from two-handed to one-handed engagement in reaching. It was found that the object reached for needed to be controlled. The precision of the reach is potentially maximized when placed centrally.

It was also found that the posture needed to be controlled because infants that were not able to sit on their own used bimanual reaches in all postural positions except sitting upright, where they would reach one-handed. As a result, their grasping phases will not have been maximized because of the decrease in body control. On the other hand, if the infant does not have body control, it would be hard for them to get a hold of an object because their reach will be limited.

When "non-sitting" infants reached bimanually, while seated upright, they often ended up falling forward. Regardless of whether they can self-sit, infants can adjust their two handed engagement in relation to the arrangement of the objects being reached for. Analysis of hand-to-hand distance during reaching indicates that in the prone and supine posture, non-sitting infants moved their hands simultaneously towards the midline of their bodies as they reached which is not observed by stable sitting infants in any position. Non-sitter infants, although showing strong tendencies toward bimanual reaching, tend to reach with one hand when sat. Sitter infants show a majority of differentiated reaches in all posture conditions.

A study conducted by Esther Thelen on postural control during infancy used the dynamic systems approach to observe motor development. The findings suggest that early reaching is constrained by head and shoulder instability. The relationship between posture and reaching is tight. Thus, head control and body stability are necessary for the emergence of grasping.^{[citation needed]}