Baby-Led Solids = Fine Motor Skills

We're doing baby-led solids with Zara. It's also known as baby led weaning, but to me 'weaning' means the end of breastfeeding, not the start of other foods. Anyway, basically it involves following the baby's lead as to when they're ready to start other foods, letting the baby regulate what and how much they eat, and not feeding them bland pureed mush.
I was planning on using this approach with Zara anyway, and she made the decision to start when she was 5 1/2 months by grabbing a bread roll out of my hand, and shoving it in her mouth.
To start with, the vast majority of the food that went in came straight back out again, somewhat soggy but pretty much intact. Slowly, she's started to swallow more of the food, as evidenced by her changing poos! (Luckily they're still mostly breastmilk poos, just slightly chunky, so they still smell nice!)
Mostly she eats fruit- she's tried pear, apple, banana, watermelon, kiwifruit, rockmelon, strawberries, blueberries, orange, mandarin... and probably more. She's also had bread, pasta, rice, carrot, zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, tomato, olives, capsicum... etc etc etc.
She still has no teeth but still does pretty well chomping up crunchier things!
Obviously you need to be sensible with what you feed a small baby- no nuts or anything- and make sure they're supervised in case of choking, but evidence suggests that babies are far less likely to choke on food when they are controlling what goes into their mouths than when they're being spoon fed.
Anyway, the original point of this post was- I was watching Zara eating roast potato for dinner, and thinking about how good her fine motor skills are compared to other babies I've looked after of the same age (Malachi, and babies I cared for when I worked in childcare). She can pick up an individual blueberry, or olive slice, and get it into her mouth with pretty good accuracy. I imagine this extra practice and development of her fine motor skills will give her a headstart with drawing, writing and other similar skills compared to babies who are spoon fed... it's amazing how all these skills tie in together, and how much our babies can actually do for themselves if we follow their lead and trust them.