While it may seem like life has been stuck on the ‘pause’ button, your children keep growing. This growth can cause both physical and emotional stress. Read more
These days the answer to better cognitive performance seems to involve the concept of âExecutive Functionâ. Many a consultant can assess your child or you for performance in various aspects of executive function skills. They can then provide you with all sorts of support systems to help and generally instill new habits, not necessarily the skills.
What are executive function skills? They are commonly considered to be paying attention, organizing, and time management to name a few. The skills typically emerge over time with normal development, and this development has been the subject of much functional brain imaging. Where is clearâhow, not so clear.
We see time and time again that the secret for brain development is in motor skill development. A recent study conducted by Oregon State University shows an association between executive function development and simple hand-eye manipulative skills.
Relations of Preschoolersâ Visual Motor and Object Manipulation Skills with Executive Function and Social Behavior
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5549668/
In preschool children, better visual-motor integration skills were significantly related to better executive function scores, suggesting that visual-motor skills help lay the foundation for executive function.
The study measured a childâs ability to throw, catch, kick, bounce and hit targets with balls. The manipulative skill assessment included tracing, copying, building with blocks, folding paper given specific instructions, and manipulating pellets into small containers.
Building with blocks. Playing with balls. Pretty simple stuff that cannot be experienced on a screen. Did you know by age four a child should be able to catch, bounce, and toss a ball?
Playing with balls requires so many little skills wrapped up in one. Bouncing a ball involves postural shifts engaging the vestibular/balance system, shoulder/elbow/wrist/finger coordination, as well as head and eye movement timing coordination. No wonder some of us have a hard time!
Four Early Life Events that derail development of visual-motor skills
The relationships necessary for well-integrated visual-motor development begin in the early months of life and can be thrown off by very common events. The saying âLife happensâ certainly applies!
Here are four early life events that could impact visual-motor skills:
Birth stress from C-section, breech, multiple, and wrapped umbilical cord. Birth characteristics have a variety of impacts to the movement and structural foundational relationships. The prenatal movement repertoire is often incomplete or the abnormal stress at birth upsets the prenatal movement foundation.
NICU or PICU support in the early months of life. The IVâs, mechanical breath support and other early medical interventions inhibit development of arm/shoulder relationships foundational to visual-motor skill evolution. These arm-based procedures are necessary at the time for medical care, but there is a lingering impact to subsequent development.
Falling in the first years of life. This literally jams the flow of the hand-eye movement flows. Seventy-three percent of ER visits in age 0-4 children are for falls. Falls, the largest source of concussions in children, are commonly from car seats, shopping carts, strollers, high chairs, stairs, beds, etc.
https://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/data/dist_ed.html
Broken forearm, hands, fingers, and clavicles. Together these account for over half of all childhood fractures. The injury and immobilization (cast) each have an impact to visual-motor skill function by blocking the flow in the segmental coordination for fluent motor skills.
At what ages can we identify gaps?Â
Beginning at birth, there are distinct phases of motor control and visual integration.
At six weeks of age we are able to tell when this visual-motor foundation is working easily, or needs a little help.
Infant-Toddler aged childrenâs skills can be identified by play and exploration.
Preschool children should be writing shapes and mastering a variety of hand grasps, as well as having tons of fun with balls and blocks.
Elementary, Tween and Teens increasingly need speed and accuracy both with written tasks, social skills and large motor skills. (Think bike riding and driving navigation!)
Adults and Older Adults also can have challenges with visual motor skills which have nothing to do with getting older. They have everything to do with injuries, illnesses and medical interventions.
What to expect?
In your first visit we use our observations, your background information, your observations, and our passive movement assessments to surface the gaps. This often includes:
Passive core organizing movements of rocking and stretching.
Independent and integrated visual-motor movements
Play-based activities (for the little ones)
Drawing and writing activities (for everyone else)
Balance tests when vision seems to be related to vestibular/balance concerns or when a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is part of your history.
Where does BridgingŸ come into play with visual-motor skills?
There are two parts to problem solving visual motor skill glitches. The first task is not merely determining the skills are troubled. We go the next step to determine how they do work together. The second aspect is to determine which aspects of developmental foundation preceded the skill gap. Before addressing the gap we need to rebuild the foundation. Sometimes the gap clears itself once the substrate supports the skills.
Some of the steps we follow to guide an intervention-
Identify how skills actually function, which also provides insight to what is challenging on a daily basis. Visual-motor skills are generally present, but often function in unstable and inefficient ways. Instead of a yes/no evaluation, we consider the âhowâ.
Identification of precursor gaps in the most basic aspects of integrated function related to stages of infant development. For example, we identify glitches in the establishment of a stable midline, ability to cross midline, differentiated hand use. We also check the underlying postural movement and control of the head/neck/core supporting visual movement.
Restore the stability of body, arm and head function making it easier for vision to work with the body.
Restore the ranges of postures and movements which are required for daily visual-motor tasks. Reaching up for a ball, or reaching down to tie shoes requires different skills and relationships between the body, hands and eyes.
What we donât do? We leave the thorough evaluation of visual skills up to the many excellent Developmental Optometrists. They also have a very structured therapy program to refine and reinforce the visual skills with the motor skills we enable.
What do we do to correct the gaps?
In a nutshellâwe use Bridging to rebuild the relationships between the body, hands and eyes in the same order they should have originally developed.
We stabilize the body and head in series of sequential progressive postures which follow developmentâlaying down, seated, and standing.
We make sure specific transitions are working well. Again these relate to the sequence of development.
We test specific relationships of the arms, hands, head and eyes and find glitches in necessary transitions.(moving up, down, in, out, etc.)
What changes?
Amazingly the observation and feedback consistently indicate that emotional, cognitive and executive function gaps begin to fill in. All ages are able to concentrate more easily, complete tasks with less effort, and take on more complex challenges. Most of all they seem to have more fun and are playful!
We often sit back and check the list of developmental play and transitions at the end of a session. Once the structural relationships are enabled, the development of visual-motor skills unfolds right before our eyes. It is truly amazing to watch.
Want to see how well your childâs visual-motor basics work?
Consult the Kinetic Konnectionsâ team, or your Bridging technique professional.
The Power of GesturesâCommunication (Part 1)
Fist bump? Shake hands? Big hugs? Hang-loose wave?
Families have greetings. Fraternities have handshakes. Teams have hand signals.
These are all versions of gestures– a powerful way to quickly communicate so much meaning in a short interaction. There are big gestures used to direct traffic and airplanes. There are little secretive gestures used to convey affections. There are colorful gestures to convey emotion and frustration. Gestures are all around us!
But what if your motor skills donât allow you to gesture accurately or easily? Turns out your communication skills donât quite match the others’ perceptions either.
We find that there is sometimes an overlooked aspect to these frustrationsâthe motor skills just donât work. The inside emotions and thoughts donât match the external body language and gestures because the movements havenât developed yet.
When do gestures develop? The foundation for development of gestures happens in several phases of infancy.
Why would these skills not develop? We find a myriad of reasons for the skills to be skipped.
But those were years ago! Even though these traumas may have happened years ago, the body is still affected. The body is amazing and seems to figure out work-arounds making the underlying gap hard to observe without specific assessment. We find all ages can have stress or dysfunction in the ease of gestures and it often tracks back to this early period of life.
The bodyâs compensatory strategies allow you to move forward, but not at peak performance. Hereâs how the subpar performance impacts function by age.
For those who are interested in learning more about the link between gestures and learning, read some fascinating research here. Gesture as a window onto communicative abilities: Implications for diagnosis and intervention<www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4564136/>
Next up One way we help our clients get back on track and eliminate challenges is to restore foundational movement transitions supporting gesturing. In my next post, weâll look at how we assess and identify the root cause of the gesture challenges.
Step into a new view of your professional world where so much more is possible.
Step into a new level of understanding of the links between development, physical regulation, learning, emotional regulation, behavior and pain perceptions.
The physics relationships in a person’s body related to movement and regulation of temperature, volume and flows necessary for survival are at the heart of the Kinetic Bridging technique. We use movement to restore these elementary relationships that normally develop early on in life to get people back on track physically and developmentally.
By learning the Physics principles we are all based upon, you will transform your thinking about how to help people facing physical, mental, and even emotional challenges to move forward and thrive. Improving the most basic movement relationships in the body supports unimaginable changes in all aspects of how we function.
Whether you want to learn a new tool to help your patients or better understand a technique that could relieve frustration for yourself or a loved one, we have a level of learning for you.
