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Mind and body - motor skills

When a child starts formal schooling, it is assumed that he or she will be able to sit still, pay attention, manipulate a writing instrument and control the eye movements necessary to follow a line of print. But these abilities depend upon the maturity of the motor system the system of nerves in the brain and spinal cord which sends impulses to the muscles causing movement.

When a child starts formal schooling, it is assumed that he or she will be able to sit still, pay attention, manipulate a writing instrument and control the eye movements necessary to follow a line of print. But these abilities depend upon the maturity of the motor system  the system of nerves in the brain and spinal cord which sends impulses to the muscles causing movement.

Attention, balance and co-ordination are the primary ABC on which all later learning depends. Perhaps as literacy and numeracy levels are given more and more emphasis and children enter school at an earlier age, we are in danger of forgetting this.

In the former Czechoslovakia two simple tests were carried out to assess school readiness. Could the child draw a circle in both a clockwise and anticlockwise direction? And could the child touch the left ear with the right hand and the right foot with the left hand? These simple motor abilities are essential if a child is to be able to form letters and to cross from the left to the right side of the page when writing.

So just how do under-fives develop these physical skills? When a child is born he cannot hold his head up and his only means of responding to the outside world is through primitive survival reflexes. But by the end of his first year of life, he is ready to get up on to his feet and to move around. In just 12 months he has progressed from using his whole body as the base of support when lying down, to four-point kneeling when creeping on hands and knees, to being semi-upright when sitting, to standing and walking. When a child has control of his upright posture his hands are then freed to carry out tasks unrelated to it.

Normal motor development starts from the head downwards, and from the centre outwards. Gross muscle control is usually ahead of fine muscle control, so that the child who has difficulty with fine muscle tasks such as doing up buttons and eating with a knife and fork may need to work on gross muscle skills before being able to refine movements.

To read, a child must be able to focus on a line of print and follow it from  in our culture  left to right. This visual ability is linked to the ability to balance, because the balance mechanism in the inner ear and the muscles which control eye movements operate from the same circuit in the brain. So any problems with automatic balance will affect eye movements.

In turn, balance is dependent on movement. Think of learning to ride a bicycle or bowling a hoop along the ground. Neither will remain upright unsupported unless they are set in motion. With a child, balance is only initially maintained by moving fast, and wobble sets in as movement slows down, stops or starts. As control over balance improves, the amount of movement required to remain upright can be reduced. The most advanced level of movement is the ability to stay totally still. The child who cannot sit still shows that he does not yet have sufficient control of involuntary movement. Like a bicycle, he needs motion to maintain stability.

Head control is also vital for reading and writing. The ability to maintain the head at the midline perpendicular to the supporting base, gives a child his sense of 'centre' in space so the balance mechanism, the muscles and the eyes can make adjustments appropriate to the situation. If a child lacks head righting reflexes, the neck muscles, the body and the eyes must constantly adjust, correct and re-correct.

In the 1970s, while working as a research fellow in the Department of Psychology at Manchester University, Professor Pavlidis, now at the University of Macedonia, Greece, examined a group of children with dyslexia. He found that all of the group had poorly-developed visual tracking ability and that aberrant eye movements could be detected as early as three-and-a-half years. Furthermore, the children with abnormal eye movements had never crawled like a commando on their tummies or crept on hands and knees.

Failure to crawl and creep are not necessarily by themselves a predictor of later specific learning difficulties. Rather, crawling and creeping represent the successful completion of several stages of motor development, which assume that head control and independent use of upper and lower portions of the body on both sides have been established. In the process of crawling and creeping a child learns to synchronise balance, vision and proprioception (sensations from the body to the brain concerning balance), and the hand-eye co-ordination involved is carried out at the same visual distance a child will use when reading and writing some years later.If babies and toddlers are not encouraged to roll, crawl, run about, climb and swing they may have problems learning to read and write later on. Too much time in baby walkers, car seats and buggies may inhibit a baby from developing his gross motor skills. During the day he needs time on the floor on his tummy (see box). A young child may similarly be inhibited by too much time watching TV, or at a computer or being driven around in cars. Time on the climbing frame and swings at the park may do more for his academic success than teaching him to hold a pencil correctly or explaining phonics. With the early years, it has to be first things first.                                     NW

Sally Goddard Blythe is a director of the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology in Chester which specialises in detecting and correcting underlying physical factors in conditions such as dyslexia and Attention Deficit Disorder. The INPP runs one-day courses in developmental games for small groups or a whole class of children (01244 311414).