Pencil grip - what age did your child master it?

[CwtchesAndCuddles]

Ds is now 5 and shows no signs of it, he still scribbles like a young toddler. He has asd and is quite delayed in lots of things, still trying to master peddling a trike etc

I would love to know if / when it "clicked" with similar children.

IME a lot of children on the spectrum have delays in acquiring motor skills too.
If his pencil grip is in line with the rest of his physical development, then working on his movement generally should help.
Things like core strength, crawling, climbing, wheelbarrow walking. Lots of table-top activities will help him with fine motor development and sensory discrimination.
My DS is 8 and still has a 'funny' grip and poor writing.

Ds is 8 years old, his control is ok, but very effortful and slow, according to OT he uses all the wrong muscles to write and over compensates for his weak grip, by holding the pencil so tightly his fingertips turn white, Ds cannot peddle either.

You could ask your GP for a referal to an OT.

DS goes to a special school and gets some OT input. He can use a screwdriver to take things apart really well (as we found to our cost!) so some fine motor skills are good !

Does he use a cylinder grasp for screw driving (many kids do).
If you look at the image on that link, you'll see how it is a more immature grasp so he may have early fine motor skills. Developing those will give him the foundation for writing (which is the most refined fine motor skills......unless you're a lace-maker or something).

Yes - he does use a cylinder grasp! That makes sense now

Great...that's an excellent foundation. Have a look at what he uses when he is scribbling...it is the same or is he using a more 'advanced' grasp for holding crayons etc....has the pencil moved forward into his fingers or is it still in his palm?

He still holds the crayon in his palm. What activities can i do with him to encourage his fine motor skills?

As above. He needs some gross motor activities that encourage strength in his core and weight bearing through his arms....climbing, monkey bars if he can manage, crawling through obstacles courses, wheelbarrows etc etc.

Then he needs to start using the fingers independently of his hands. Playdough is excellent for this, get him rolling it out using his whole hand, then pinching it, pulling pieces off.
Can you get him to peg out some washing and bring it in for you; maybe on an airer at his height? Use clothes pegs in games e.g. 'cage' toy animals into a box using pegs around the edges?
Use crayon on it's side (as you do for tree rubbings) to get him to colour in.
Tearing paper into strips and small squares and then use them for gluing onto a collage.
I used to get DS to feed himself individual pieces of food e.g. cheerios, raisins. Or glue cheerios onto a collage.

I would also take the pressure off of producing writing correctly (IYKWIM) and encourage 'multi-sensory' writing e.g. chalk on the floor/patio, large sheets of paper pinned to the wall and encourage him to write over his head, writing on a sheet of paper with sand paper underneath. Shaving foam on a table is also good, then you can add sand to it, or colours etc etc....

Any activity that encourages him to use more finger movement and less whole hand.

He does lots of sensory writting in school and loves to eat cheerios and raisins one by one so that is good. Will get some spare clothes pegs for us to play with. I think I will avoid the ripping paper as he gets enough practice with wallpaper!!!

I'm laughing at the cheerios for a collage - he's way to literal for that, cheerios are for eating!!! When they were putting hands into jelly in school he went to get a spoon so he could eat it!!!

Not sure he has ever totally mastered it.
His hand still looks a bit weak looking when he's holding a pen. It hurts if he writes for too long.
He's 15 ...dx asd and dyspraxia
At just 4 (when he started school )he had a cylinder grip . By 5 he had the right grip but it was very hard work to maintain it for even a short amount of time.

From memory the EYFS curriculum puts correct grip at developmentally by 60 months. IME, schools are putting less pressure on correct grip and more on ability to form the letters.
DS1 has dyspraxia and hypermobile joints, and is 9 - just like your's Tiredness!
He is also ambidextrous, with scarily similar writing with both hands (teacher can't tell which hand does the writing). This helps with tiredness - he can swap over. He doesn't have a correct grip with his RH, but he does with his left, but produces the same style of writing. So grip is not the be all and end all of writing and accurate mark making.