Our children seem to be doing less and less physical activity these days. At the same time, more and more children seem to be needing therapy. For some time now, many pre-schools have tended to focus more on fine motor skills, depriving our children of important learning opportunities that can only be learnt through play and physical activity. Not only that, our children are spending more and more time on sedentary activities such as television, computer and play station gaming.
Appropriate movement and gross motor activities can teach your child body awareness, spatial skills, eye-hand and eye-foot co-ordination, motor planning skills, bilaterality and much more, all important for later perceptual motor learning in the classroom. Balancing for example teaches us about laterality, an internal awareness of the left and right sides of our body, and the beginning of the development of the right and left concept. Children who do not develop laterality have a disadvantage in school because various subjects (including reading, writing, and physical education) involve left and right concepts.
Moving on different levels and in different directions teaches us spatial awareness such as understanding on top of, under, through, in and out. When we write the letter “d” we need to understand direction in a more subtle, two dimensional way. The pen has to move around, up and down. If our children are unable to follow and understand these concepts through movement first, it is very difficult for them to understand them when learning to write. Not only that, they need to have very refined fine motor control to know how to move their pencil in the correct way. Fine motor control is preceded by gross motor control.
Did you know? We learn everything through our senses. We have internal and external senses. Our external senses are our eyes, ears, nose, tongue and our sense of touch. Our internal sense is our movement sense. This consists of our balance system situated in our inner ear, and the feedback we receive through our muscles and joints as we move (proprioceptive systems). These inner senses are responsible for telling us where our bodies are in space, whether we are upside down or upright, on our tummies or on our backs, whether we are moving or not and much more. All our senses need to work as a team in order for us to learn effectively. In other words our senses need to be integrated. One could call this “sensory integration”.
Sensory integration is the ability of the brain to receive, organise, interpret, and use information that enters the body through our senses. To do this, information from each of the senses, movement of the body and gravity must be integrated (pulled together) and interpreted before children can successfully function in the world around them. If one observes a child writing, try to count the number of sensory integration activities she must go through to use her eyes, sit still, hold the pencil and paper, and move her fingers, hands and wrist to write. The visual system takes in the letters and words, while the balance system and the proprioceptive systems keep her head steady and maintain her balance in her seat. In the meantime the tactile and proprioceptive systems must work so that she can hold the pencil and paper. Even the auditory system must function to write silently.
In order to learn, we need our senses to work as a team and to work effectively. It is obvious then, that all our senses need to be stimulated correctly for this to happen. Movement activity is one of the fundamental ways to do this, and is critical in the pre-school years.
So, lots of spinning, tipping, tumbling, rolling, hopping, hanging, jumping and swinging should be happening in those pre-school years. Try to get your child out there and exercising. Yes, it is good for them to be outside in the garden. Not only is it good for perceptual motor learning, and sensory integration, it is also healthy!
References and quotes: Physical Activities for Improving Children’s Learning and Behaviour,
by Billye Ann Cheatum and Allison A. Hammond. Sensory Integration and the Child, by Jean Ayres.
Source: Liz Senior, Occupational Therapist, Clamber Club, kloof@clamberclub.com.