Motor Skills Ep 3: Bilateral Coordination

How do the brain's hemispheres work together to help you perform everyday tasks like dressing or writing? Discover practical strategies to support your child's bilateral coordination through engaging. We'll talk through the three stages of bilateral coordination—symmetrical, reciprocal, and asymmetrical. Whether it's catching a ball, peddling a bike, or writing, the tips and examples will help you understand these crucial developmental milestones. 

We also delve into recognizing and addressing challenges in motor skill development, such as hand swapping and avoiding midline crossing. From tummy time for babies to arts and crafts for toddlers, and more complex tasks for school-aged children, we've got a range of engaging activities to support growth. Explore how integrating children into household chores and routine tasks can further develop their coordination skills. With fun games like the Hokey Pokey and Simon Says, we highlight the benefits of gross motor activities tailored to different ability levels, creating a supportive and confidence-boosting environment for your child both at home and in the classroom.

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DISCLAIMER:
Whilst I will always make evert effort to share correct information as at the date of the podcast, research is constantly happening and as a profession we learn more everyday. One therapist may have a different way of doing things to another, and every child's needs are unique. By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others Consult your child's paediatrician or therapist for any recommendations for your child.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:11

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to episode 3 of our motor skills season in Bell's OT corner. I can't believe we're already at episode 3, let alone the fact that we're already in June. This year is absolutely flying by. But that's okay. We're still going to keep going along with our podcast and it's going to be just fine. We're going to get through the year.

Speaker 1 0:36

So today in episode three, we are talking about bilateral integration or bilateral coordination, crossing midline and, if we have time, we're going to touch a little bit on hand-eye coordination. Now we're going to start off talking about this bilateral coordination. Maybe you've heard it referred to as bilateral integration. As I mentioned last week, it's really becoming a bit of a buzzword that I hear around and different people talking about. Is this a problem? Is this impacting? And so, as always, guys, we're going to break it down into what it is, what it means and ways that we can support it in all children.

Speaker 1 1:19

So bilateral coordination and bilateral integration tend to be used interchangeably. They refer to the same things. Truthfully, slight, tiny little differences, but not enough that anyone bothers using them for different purposes. So they refer to how the brain talks to itself to be able to coordinate both sides of our body in a nice smooth way to complete a task. So if we look at the neuroscience behind it, we have two hemispheres within our brain, and you may or may not know this, but it's the left side of your brain that actually controls the right side of your body, and the right side of your brain controls the motor movements for the left side of your body. And so these parts of our brain, we want them talking to each other and working together to get my right side and my left side doing either the same task or doing slightly different tasks to be able to help me do whatever the activity is that I'm trying to do. For example, if we think of dressing, I need to use both of my hands to reach out and hold a piece of clothing. Maybe I'm going to use both of my hands to hold the t-shirt and pull it over my head, and then I'm going to use one hand to keep it holding still while my other hand reaches up and pushes through an arm sleeve, and then the second one, and so I've got a little bit of both of my hands working together doing the same action, but also then times when my body is going to complete different actions on different sides of my body, and that's all about this bilateral coordination getting both sides of my body doing the jobs that they need to do to complete the activity that I'm trying to engage in.

Speaker 1 3:09

And so bilateral integration, or bilateral coordination, occurs when my right side and my left side of my brain are talking to each other, and it works with this area of our brain called the corpus callosum, and this is just the area that allows the communication to happen between these sides of our brain, and so there's lots of things that can impact upon our bilateral coordination, and these are things like our visual motor skills, and so my ability to perceive my environment and figure out what that means in terms of is there something coming towards me? Do I need to navigate around something? How far away is that shirt that I'm reaching for to be able to pick it up and bring it to me? We have components of core strength and stability. So, if you think back to the episode one yes, was it episode one? Yes, episode one where we talked about some of those fundamentals, about having that strong core and that strong trunk to then be able to have the strong branches being our arms and legs and the strong leaves being our fingers and our toes. We need that core strength and stability to be able to then build off of that to allow for some of these more coordinated tasks to occur.

Speaker 1 4:27

And, if you haven't already, jump back and listen to last week's episode, because we dig into that a little bit more. But what other things can impact upon our bilateral coordination? Our sensory processing can impact upon it, because we're using information from our vestibular system, we're using information from our proprioceptive system and we're using information from our vestibular system. We're using information from our proprioceptive system and we're using information from our visual system that our brain is having to take all this information in, put it together to figure out how that's impacting upon where I am right now and therefore, what I need to do to be able to move in a coordinated way. Now, if you are interested and you haven't yet yet, jump back in to listen to those episodes, because they just will give you that little bit of a deeper understanding for some of the things that we talk about today.

Speaker 1 5:12

The other things that can impact upon our bilateral coordination are, well, bits of our balance and coordination and that links into our vestibular system and, again, this is those building block skills of can I keep my body upright, can I keep my body balanced? Because until I am in a position where I'm upright, balanced, stable, I'm not going to be able to engage in more complex motor tasks. So see how we have all these little building blocks, that kind of add together and add on top, and add on top as we start to see some of this skill attainment. And it's the exact same if you think about kind of the developmental progression of and we'll talk a little bit about it today of what we see kind of newborns and babies do and what that is, that progresses into toddler stage and that, as that progresses into school age or school stage, what we can see in some of how, when these building blocks start to build upon each other, how some of these movements can become more and more complex as well. And the reason I point this out is because some components of bilateral integration and bilateral coordination really require some of these underlying skills.

Speaker 1 6:27

And so if you're seeing your child in your class or one of your children at home and you're going, oh I'm really it's a bit interesting. I'm not quite sure, maybe there's a little bit of coordination difficulties. Well, a really nice one to do is go back and play some more of those gross motor games, play some more of those core strength games we were talking about last week. Just build up a little bit of their confidence, a little bit of that strength and that stability, because it might just help their body to then be able to figure out how it needs to move. And, as always, if you do have concerns about your child and their development, please, please, please, reach out to an allied health professional or your GP. So there's lots of things that can impact upon our bilateral coordination and I just wanted to touch base on them quickly. But we're not going to go into too much detail because we have before.

Speaker 1 7:20

What we want to do today is do that deeper dive into what bilateral coordination actually is. Now I want you to think about it as a kind of stepping stones as we build and refine this skill. And so the first skill that we see is this what we call symmetrical bilateral coordination. Then we move into reciprocal bilateral coordination and then we move into asymmetrical. Now, big words, that's fine. We're going to break it down into what they mean. So the first one, the symmetrical bilateral coordination, and this is when both sides of my body are doing the same. So it's working as if I have a mirror and both sides of my body are going to be doing the exact same action.

Speaker 1 8:08

Now, just quickly, before we dive into this a little bit deeper, I just want to touch on what a midline is and what this terminology of crossing midline is. So your midline is an imaginary line that goes from the top of your head and runs straight down the middle of your body, so straight in between your eyes, down over your nose, in between your lips, straight in between all the way down to your feet, and it splits your body into your right side and your left side. Now, crossing the midline is what occurs when we take a body part from one side of our body and we bring it across that midline to the other side. So if I was to take my left hand and bring it over to my right knee, I would cross that midline with that action. Or if I was to cross my legs, I would be bringing my foot across my body to tuck it under my other foot, to be able to sit cross-legged. And so that's what we talk about when we refer to this midline and that's the action of crossing the midline.

Speaker 1 9:13

Now, lots of the tasks that we do day to day require us to be able to cross this imaginary line Things like dressing, reaching for toys, writing, because I'll reach. Well, I'm right-handed, so I'll reach over to my left and I'll start writing, and as I write across the page I will come back across that midline. And then back again. Cooking in the kitchen, I'm constantly reaching across my body to reach for different food, stirring a bowl I'll be stirring and reaching around and crossing that midline. So it's something that can be quite common throughout our day, and the ability to spontaneously cross this midline makes fluidity in occupations a lot easier. And what you sometimes see is children are learning how to cross this midline is they might do something like swapping hands, and so if they're drawing on a piece of paper, if the piece of paper is on their left, they'll draw with their left hand. When it comes to that midline, they'll swap the crayon to their right hand and then keep on drawing, and so it starts to impact upon that fluidity and that engagement in occupation.

Speaker 1 10:21

So now that we've touched on kind of what that crossing midline concept is, so this is when both sides of our body are doing the same thing. So imagine I'm reaching out for a toy or a cup in front of me and I've caught it with both of my hands, and then I'm going to use both of those hands to bring it up to my mouth at the same pace, and so both of those sides of my body are doing the exact same action. If I go to catch a ball with two hands, it's the same thing. I'm going to have both of my hands out, ready, outstretched and ready, and they're going to move together at the same time. Or they're going to bring the ball into my tummy at the same time, things like holding onto a swing. As I'm swinging and moving backwards and forwards. If you think about my legs and my hands, they're both going to be doing the same actions at the same time. So that's our symmetrical.

Speaker 1 11:18

Then we move on to our reciprocal, bilateral coordination. So this is when I'm moving both sides of my body at the same time still, but they're going in alternative ways or alternative directions. And so this is a step where, from our brain, knowing that, yep, cool, I've got arms and my arms move, like this to, hey, one arm can move forwards and one arm can move backwards. So the brain starts to associate and refine some of those movements that our body can make. Now this is really important because if we think of things like walking, when we start to swing our arms, crawling if your child did do a reciprocal crawl starting to look at things like riding a bike, now, riding a bike, I need one leg pedaling at one time, the other leg pedaling at another time. I'm then going to hold on to the bike handles, but if I'm turning a corner, one hand needs to push forward and the other hand needs to pull back and vice versa. So there's lots and lots of reciprocal movements happening there Things like climbing, things like marching up and down, things like doing jumping jacks, lots and lots of these movements that require one side of my body to be doing something and the other side of my body to be kind of doing the opposite action at the same time.

Speaker 1 12:55

So that is our reciprocal bilateral coordination. So we've had our symmetrical both sides doing the same thing, reciprocal, both sides working at the same time but doing different actions. And then our brain refines it again and we get into asymmetrical bilateral coordination. And this is where both sides of my body are doing different actions to perform a task or engage in an activity, but they could be completely different actions. So this is where I might stand on one leg to kick a ball, this is where I might hold the paper still whilst I'm writing, or I might hold a bowl under my arm whilst I'm stirring to cook some, to bake some cookies. It would be things like tying my shoelaces, getting dressed, as I talked about before.

Speaker 1 13:50

When you break down all of those different movements that we have to do, it can become quite complex. Things like coloring, if I'm again stabilizing that paper, doing bits of threading, more of your more refined arts and crafts activities are going to require one hand or one part of my body doing one job and another part of my body doing another job. And a lot of the time you'll hear this referred to as well as the dominant hand stage, because this is where we see children will start to develop a more dominant hand and have that kind of doing hand and that helping hand or assisting hand and the idea of yep, I can hold the paper with my helping hand so that it doesn't, you know, move around on the table and I'm gonna use my doing hand to write or I'm gonna hold my fork with my helping hand because it's just gonna keep it nice and still, and my doing hands gonna hold the knife and cut it forwards and backwards because, again, my right hands or my left hand, whichever hand you use is holding and keeping that stationary position, whilst my other hand is making that backwards and forwards action with my knife. And so it's a much more complex motor movement because your brain is having to send different signals to different parts of your body to complete the task. And the reason I point this out and the reason why it's important to think about bilateral coordination as children develop is because when we're learning these skills, we have to think about it. The brain is actually thinking about okay, so how can my body move, what can I do with this part of my body and how can I hold one part of my body doing one task while the other part of my body does another task? And sometimes a really great way to help kids engage and develop some of these skills is to be really explicit about it, and so you might be playing like a Simon Says or a copy me game and you might be okay. So we're gonna tell our left hand it needs to freeze and our right hand is going to tap on top of our head.

Speaker 1 16:02

You know that whole rub your belly, pat your head thing that everyone tried to get you to do when you were younger and some people, like, picked it up really quickly and other people it was just really hard. That's because their brain was trying to figure out how do I send these different messages, how do I tell one hand to do a circle action, one hand to pat up and down on different parts of my body, so they're in different positions and it gets complicated. So that is the kind of breakdown of what our bilateral coordination is, and I do want you to kind of think about it in terms of those building blocks. So that's symmetrical both sides, same time, same movement Reciprocal both sides, same time, different movements. And that asymmetrical both sides same or different times, different movements altogether. Because this is the progression that we want to help our kids do.

Speaker 1 16:59

And so if you're noticing your child or a child in your class is having difficulty with a bit of coordination, and you have the time in, maybe in PE at school, maybe in movement breaks at school, at home, in playtime, and you can do a couple copy me games and see, are you copying me if we're doing the same sides of our body at the same time? Great. Are you copying me if I start to do some marching and I have one arm going forwards and one arm going back, or is that a bit tricky? So let's play some games and let's practice that. But if you're doing well with that and then it's that final step of coordination and that bilateral coordination, then great. That's a weakened focus, but we need these sort of progressions because that's how the brain starts to figure out okay, how can I use my body, how can I coordinate my body in different ways to perform different tasks, which ultimately allows me to engage in the occupations and the things that I want to do, which, as you guys know, I harp on about it all the time. That's what OT is about and that's what this podcast is all about. It's breaking down all these bits and pieces that can be going on, that can be impacting upon how we are actually engaging in that occupation.

Speaker 1 18:12

So what can difficulties with bilateral coordination impact upon? And you may already have a little bit of a guess from what we've talked about, what I've talked about already, but truthfully, it can impact upon a fair few things, because it can impact upon the planning and the organizing and getting my body ready to do a task. So things like dressing, where I have to coordinate my rights and my lefts and I have to lift up one leg to put my pants and my trousers on, I have to reach my arms up to twist my shirt around it gets quite complex from a motor skill perspective. Things like tying shoelaces, drawing, cutting using scissors, cutting using a knife and fork, throwing and catching a ball, crawling, climbing, riding a bike All of these activities can be impacted by difficulties with bilateral coordination. Even things like coordinating my body movements when I go swimming.

Speaker 1 19:13

Maybe I have a late hand preference, or I might swap my hands all the time and I don't start to show a clear hand preference. Maybe you might see a child who, as we're talking about before, has avoidance of crossing that midline. So these might be some of the things that you notice and then you go oh yeah, you do have difficulties within these occupations as well, but you might notice that when they're writing or drawing, they keep on swapping hands. Maybe they reverse their letters when they're writing and they have difficulties when they have to do PE tasks and use both sides of their body at the same time. So what can we do to help? And number one is to have that curiosity and notice, because once we notice and we start to see some of these difficulties within the children, that you either work within your class or your children at home, that's when we can start to play around with some of these games, dig a little bit deeper and help build some of that confidence.

Speaker 1 20:19

And so for this one, actually I'm going to talk about it in terms of some of those bigger groups of milestones development. And, as I always say, these milestones development, they're not a checklist of we must attain this skill in this time. Every child is different and unique, but it is a nice guideline of the progression that we go through. So what I'm going to do today is talk about them in some general age ranges, of when we tend to see this progression start to happen. So for babies, we see babies start to do a little bit of bilateral coordination when they start to reach for toys and they'll bring them up to their mouth, and when they reach for toys with both of their hands and bring both of their hands up to their mouth at the same time, so maybe they'll then start to kind of reach with one hand and maybe even hold the toy with one hand and kind of flick and paw at it a little bit to make it do something like some of those spinning toys. You also might see children that start to engage in tummy time and you'll see they'll either lift their hands up a little bit or they'll kick their legs out behind them or when they get excited, it's both arms up and down together and both legs up and down together. This is them starting to explore how their body can coordinate itself.

Speaker 1 21:45

And you notice a lot of that early stage is that asymmetrical sorry, symmetrical and bilateral coordination. So they're doing both of those hands at the same time. So what can we do to help? We can give them lots of different toys that they can reach and grab and I don't mean lots, but I mean lots of opportunities to reach and hold toys. So you don't need to have 15,000 toys, but have a couple that are nice and easy to grab, some of those like suction toys that you can stick onto surfaces so that it's not going to fall over they. They can hold onto that with one hand and maybe start to bang at it Maybe start to explore some of that asymmetrical hands doing different movements, having toys that they can hold whilst they're seated in a high chair can be a great one, because, if you think back to last week, we're not having to use all of that core strength anymore because I'm supported in my high chair.

Speaker 1 22:35

I'm not having to sit up and use all of those muscles to sit up on the floor, and so I can focus a little bit more on what I'm playing with with my hands. Maybe you give me two blocks and I can bang them together and throw them at you, because they will. They'll then start to throw them on the floor and it becomes a great fun game, and so that's kind of the play activities that we want to be offering to our children, and they're probably the ones that you're doing anyway. When we start to look at kind of the toddler age, this is when they start to kind of figure out oh, my hands can do different things and this is kind of cool, and so this is where games like pegboards are a great one.

Speaker 1 23:13

Arts and crafts and drawing is fantastic, playing with play-doh and squishing it, and you might give a little bit into both hands, so we squish it with both hands and then we roll both hands together to make a sausage and then we can squish it down with both hands. But then we might start to go, hey, I can hold it with one hand and I can squish it with my other hand, and it might be that you just do some different actions and see if your child will copy you and allow these opportunities to play and explore and interact within a nice, fun environment. But at the same time they're figuring out different ways to use their hands and their bodies. Other things like movement-based games like the Hokey Pokey is a great one. Simon Says, copy Me Games also a great one. Any sort of action-based head, shoulders, knees and toes also fantastic. All of these different sing-song games help kids start to figure out how I can use my body and my arms together. Climbing outside, going on the playground also fantastic.

Speaker 1 24:18

Doing some drawing with both hands can be a really nice one as well. I know when we start to do drawing, everyone goes up here's your pencil and you hold your pencil in this hand, or you hold your crayon in this hand, and this is how we draw. You can get both hands going, you know. Put some paper up on the wall or on a window or on the floor, wherever works best for you, and have crayons in both hands and draw rainbows that go all the way across the side of the page or circles, with two hands at a time. It's just a different, fun way of exploring the different movements that we can do.

Speaker 1 24:49

When we then move into that kind of school age kids, this is where those motor tasks and that bilateral coordination components become a little bit more complex and we're doing things like using scissors, writing tracing, using rulers, opening lunch boxes and containers, turning pages and books, getting dressed, putting on backpacks heaps. So some fun games that you can do. That kind of help build some of these skills are things like origami, folding paper, airplanes, building with Legos, looking at arts and crafts activities that require a little bit more precision, looking at any sort of like lacing or weaving based games, even things like doing hand clapping games where you're following a rhythm, doing um, helping out in chores at home. So maybe they might help wipe down the table, maybe they could help mop the floor, maybe they could help sweep up with a dustpan. So they've got to hold one hand holding the dustpan and the other one helps sweep. And this is when they get a bit older. This is the stage where you can you know if you see them having difficulty. Maybe they keep on trying to move the dustpan instead of move the brush. This is where we can step in and go oh hey, I wonder, let's try keeping this one frozen and this one's going to move. We might even add some silliness and playfulness into it and say, hey, do you reckon you can sweep up? But you can only move the dustpan. Let's see if it works. Let's see if it's going to work or make a mess, because this way it's done new and different and a bit playful and fun.

Speaker 1 26:34

When we then look at helping them with dressing skills, if dressing is a difficulty for them, we're going to help give really explicit verbal prompts and we're going to make a bit of a plan before we start. So if we're putting our top on, we can go all right. What part should we do first? Do we want to put our head first? Do we want to put our arm first? Do and do both arms at the same time. Let's pick it together. Okay, let's say we're going to put our head first, so we're going to do our head first. What do we need to do? We need to hold on, we need to keep holding and keep pulling until it's all the way over our head. Once we get it over our head, then we can talk through the next step, or you'll know for your child which bit's really tricky. And helping that kind of thinking through when getting them to think about okay, so what's my body going to do, how's my body going to move, can help the brain to start to coordinate some of those movements to figure out. Yep, that's exactly how I want to do it, so I can be successful at getting myself dressed in the mornings.

Speaker 1 27:33

Other ones that are really great that will always help build some of these skills are our gross motor games like skipping ropes, riding a bike, hopscotch, kicking balls, throwing and catching. And if a small ball is too tricky, just get a bigger ball. Practice with a bigger ball and then we can bring it back down. Bouncing a ball, doing any sort of like um sports on the weekend, kicking a ball all of those things are going to help build some of these skills as well. And again, if you notice your child is having difficulties, what we want to do is help them engage with. Okay, what did my body do? What do I need to change? Or how can I move my body in a different way? And, depending upon the age of the child, will depend upon how much talking and thinking we do. But if we can help them start to figure out a different way to use my body, maybe it's easier, maybe it's easier, maybe it's harder, and if it's harder we can just laugh and make it silly. But it just helps them start to have that persistence and have that confidence that they can keep trying and they will be able to figure it out.

Speaker 1 28:38

Because one of the most common things we can see when we see children that do struggle with some of their gross motor skills children that do struggle with some of their gross motor skills and maybe one of the reasons could be bilateral coordination difficulties is when we know it's hard and we start to get a little bit older and everyone else seems to be able to do it a little bit easier than me. Well, naturally what's going to happen is that child is going to start to withdraw and go and choose to do activities that are easier for them, and I don't blame them. I frequently, as an adult, have to really convince myself to do the things that I don't want to do, and I can tell myself right, I just have to do this. This is just a part of life. Children can't quite do that yet, and so if it is hard for them, they're not going to be as willing to engage, and this is where it can come down to teachers and parents to make it fun and help with those bits of thinking. So, to finish up this episode, we're just going to talk through some little things that you could do in the classroom and some little things that you could do at home. Now, I've mentioned a fair few already, but I just wanted to put it in the framework of those particular environments to hopefully give you some more ideas and have a bit more confidence when you start to maybe play around with a bit of this area with your kids. So, some school-based ones that you can do. If you have some children in your class that you think might have difficulties with some of this coordination tasks, we can do things like using movement breaks to be slightly more purposeful and, if you have a kid in your class that you think is struggling, pairing them up with someone who can be a little bit of a buddy, or pairing them up with yourself, or giving really different movements to do. So it's different and new for the whole class.

Speaker 1 30:29

And talking about guys, we're going to do a really really silly movement break today. So you guys are going to have to watch what I do really carefully and as you explain what you're doing. That's when you can use those really explicit verbal prompts. That's when you go okay. So I'm going to get my right hand right hand doing one thing and my left hand is gonna do something different. So watch me really closely. My right hand, I'm gonna stretch it out really far and then I'm gonna turn it over, so my hands facing up, and I'm gonna reach all the way up to my head, so it's sitting on my head. And at the same time, my left hand is gonna stretch all the way out to the side, but it's going to face down, so it's going to turn over, so it's facing down and it's going to reach all the way down to my hip, and then, once we're there, they're going to have to swap, and so see how, as you're breaking it down, you're giving those extra cues, and so, for the children in your class that need that time to think about it. You're automatically setting them up and you can do any sort of crazy action or crazy movement. It doesn't really matter. But the nice thing about doing copy me games is it can be something new and different.

Speaker 1 31:36

That's not easy for everyone. That will be tricky for most people because it's something that they don't normally do, and particularly some of those finer hand ones that you can do, they're really tricky, like really really tricky, and they require a lot of thinking. I still struggle and have to really think when I have to pat my head and rub my tummy, because it takes a minute and once I've got it, I've got it but it takes a minute to get my brain thinking about it. Another really nice one that you could do in the classroom is if you see a child that's struggling with kind of scissor skills or using a ruler, is A looking at how much cutting they actually need to do. Can we just decrease how much cutting they're doing so that they're having a longer time to focus on less cutting to be more successful? Equally, we can bring those little cues in, and so if it's a little cue card that you have on their desk that reminds them, okay, I need to open my fingers, move my hand and squeeze my fingers. I've broken that down and I understand what movements I have to do. Those are kind of supports that we can look at putting in place within the school and then at home.

Speaker 1 32:42

As I said, I have talked about a lot of them, but some of the ones that are really nice and easy to fit into your morning routine or your evening routine and again, it depends upon what your child wants to do and what you notice they're finding difficult. But getting them involved in chores around the house and not necessarily chores, but just getting them involved in being a helper around the house can be a really great one. Cooking is fantastic for some of these skills, you know. Maybe they can practice scissors and use scissors to chop up some spring onions. Or maybe they could practice using one hand holding and one hand pushing, as I use a grater to help um, uh, peeler, sorry to help peel the carrots or peel a potato. Maybe they can help with stirring. Baking is fantastic, fun and there's lots of ways they can get involved in baking, and maybe it's using the rolling pin or using cookie cutters, where one hand has to hold the cookie dough and the other hand has to push the cookie cutter in Doing things out in the garden is a great one as well.

Speaker 1 33:42

So having playtime where you look at doing some of those games that I was talking about before, the other really nice one and a really nice time to practice some of these activities is bath time, because bath time is a fun time anyway. Kids well, a lot of children like being in water not all children, but a lot of children do like being in water, and if your child does, you can get out some fun activities to play in the bath. Maybe if you have a or if you have a shower screen and it gets fogged up, that's the time where we can practice some drawing and make some silly pictures with our fingers. Or you can use some bubbles in the bath or some gel in the bath to make it on the side of the bath or on the tiles, and then you can draw pictures in those. And so thinking about some of these creative ways where we can do some of these activities that are going to be in a slightly more fun, playful way, where we're focusing on both of my hands doing something together one hand doing something, another hand doing something different and then looking at those times when they are doing the occupations they find tricky. So, if it is dressing for your child and how we can just have, well, you do two steps today and mum will do the rest, because not every day is about getting the child to be 100% independent. We want to do those little short bursts and have those extra opportunities throughout the day where you can practice in a nice fun way.

Speaker 1 35:06

So, guys, that is all about our bilateral coordination. Now, just looking at the time of this episode, I think we'll just really, really, really quickly touch on hand-eye coordination. The only reason I wanted to touch on it because we will touch on it again in another episode. But when we think about some of those visual motor components that can impact upon bilateral coordination, when we think about hand-eye coordination, this then requires my bilateral coordination skills in combination with my visual skills. My visual skills, so things like being able to catch a ball, things like being able to hit something with a racket this requires me to be able to watch something that's coming in and coordinate my body at the same time, and so this is, then, another level of cognitive thinking that has to go on.

Speaker 1 36:01

And so when we want to help a child that might be having difficulties with this, we're going to give them extra prompts. We might tell having difficulties with this. We're going to give them extra prompts. We might tell them you know, we're going to watch the ball and when the ball comes close and we're going to define what that close is for that child it might be when it gets to a certain point, this is what my body is going to do, this is where my hands are going to move, this is what I'm going to do. Move, this is what I'm going to do, and maybe we look at helping with those, um, uh, like I was saying before, where we use a bigger ball to start with because it gives me more time to respond. We can look at pushing something back with a racket first and then building it up.

Speaker 1 36:38

But we really want to look at and be mindful to consider that if this child is already having difficulties with some coordination components, when we're adding that extra cognitive load of having to visually track an object and make my body respond in a coordinated way at the right time could be potentially too much for that brain. And so this is when you see children that can't coordinate it quite and then might find it really frustrating and really really struggle. Even though they're trying really really hard, they just can't can't quite get those bits to happen. And, as I said, I just wanted to flag it here, um, because I do want you to think about more focusing on those kind of bilateral coordination components. But it might be that if that's the case and you're noticing in some of those ball skills the hand-eye coordination is really tricky, maybe we'll compare it back and just doing some fun coordination based activities and then we'll bring in the visual motor component later because we will talk about in a later episode, but it does relate a lot to our coordination bit. So I didn't want to not talk about it at all. We are going to talk about it more. But that just gives you like a little insert, because ultimately there is only so much thinking a brain can do. There really is. It can't think forever. There is only so much it can do and so we want to look at how much cognitive load we're placing on a child to complete the task and where we can make some of those cognitive loads a little bit easier. And particularly with hand-eye coordination, there is a lot of thinking that goes on there all righty guys.

Speaker 1 38:14

Well, thanks for listening along. Now I forget to say this every week and I've actually remembered this week. If you could, please rate the podcast, leave a review, share it with your friends all of these things really, really help me get the podcast out there. A review, share it with your friends, all of these things really really help me get the podcast out there, guys, and into the ears of those that are actually going to benefit from it. So any feedback you have, any comments, any rates, any reviews, would be very, very, very much appreciated. But other than that, guys, I hope you all have a fantastic week and I will talk to you soon, in two weeks. Have a great one, guys. Bye, thank you.