Motor Skills Ep 6: Modelling and Language for Motor Skills

Join me for the final episode of our motor skills season, where we uncover the secrets of effectively supporting kids motor skills development through modelling and language. We explore  how to make a significant impact on their understanding and performance, through the adults use of modelling, language and embracing mistakes for meaningful learning.

We place a spotlight on the importance of modelling both gross and fine motor skills, using simple language and exaggerated actions to support complex motor movements. Discover how to break down body movements into large muscle groups, making it easier for children to replicate these actions. 

As we wrap up this enriching season, we reflect on the practical strategies and valuable insights we've shared to support children's motor skill development. Stay tuned for more engaging content in our upcoming episodes!

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:09

Hello everyone and welcome back to Bell's OT Corner. It's been a minute since I've jumped on. I should say I've been off, travelling, practising what I preach, spending some time with family, getting away from OT for a week or so and now getting back into it doing all those bits and pieces that are so important for work-life balance, so important for our in general well-being. So it was a really lovely break, really nice, but definitely ready to get back into it with you all. So we have today our last episode in our motor skills season and I was umming and ahhing a little bit about what to do in the seasons today because we've covered off what our motor skills are. We've covered off some fine motor skills. We've covered off what tone is and how that can present and what motor planning is and what practice is, and so you guys have a really nice knowledge around how to approach supporting your child if they might have some difficulty with motor skills, or how to support somebody in your class If you see a student that you might have that might have some difficulties with motor skills. But what I want to talk about today is not how we can break down a task to make it a little bit easier, but how we can use ourselves, how we can use our tone of voice, but, more importantly, how we can use our language to be quite specific, and how can we use ourselves to model different motor skills to help our children, because sometimes I find that can be the trickiest bit, because it's an entirely new way to think. You know, if you said, figure out how to walk to an adult, they just say, well, you, just you walk. Some may say you stand up and you put one foot in front of the other, but if I was being very literal and I stood up and put one foot in front of the other, I'd end up looking like I was on a tightrope. And so what we're going to talk about today is how we can use this use of language and how we can use ourselves to help break down some of these motor skills, to make it a little bit easier for the children that we're working with, or your own children, to figure out what to do. And so you'll see, this does tie in quite closely to some of the motor planning bits that we were talking about, and so if you haven't listened to that episode, please do jump back and have a listen to motor planning, because a lot of these prompts that we're going to be talking about work really well to help someone who might have difficulties figuring out how to use their body, but it's also something that we can apply to any daily activity or occupation, about how we can break it down to figure out exactly what are those motor movements required.

Speaker 1 3:00

Now we do this in two big ways that I want you to think about. Two, yeah, two big ways. Number one is we model, but we model consciously and we think about what we're going to model. And when I say model, I mean I'm going to use my body to show you so that, if language might be a bit tricky, you can see at the same time as listening. And number two is then around how we use our language. So let's talk about modelling first and let's think about two different motor skills and how we might use our body to model that.

Speaker 1 3:40

So if you think about, let's say, we're going to do climbing, climbing up like a little ladder at a playground sort of thing, and then we'll do a fine motor skill we might do using scissors, and then we'll use both of these for that kind of modelling side, and then we'll use them as well for that language side. So if we had to climb up a little ladder at a playground, so let's say it's four or five steps high and you were trying to help your child figure out how to climb a ladder, well, if I was modelling I would not go really fast. Number one we're not going to come up and go up really, really quickly. In fact I might make it look a little bit awkward. As I model, I might walk over and I'm going to do this at the same time as I'm talking something through. That's why people are saying hands and hands and feet and feet, and we'll talk through that language bit in a second.

Speaker 1 4:33

But if you think about physically how you're going to model, I might bend down a little bit so I'm at a similar height to my child or to the child that I'm working with when, then might reach nice and slowly and give it a bit of a tug to emphasise I'm using my muscles in my arms to pull, and then I might place my foot. But I might initially start placing my foot up really high and skip a step and go mm-mm too high and place it down a step and then I might push myself up and then I might make it look like I'm falling a little bit to the side and then go oh no, come back, come back, come back to come back up again. In that process, what you have modelled is you've modelled that you need your arms and they're not just going to hold on, they're going to hold on and pull, because you modelled that by pulling against the stairs, pulling against the ladder, you've modeled what happens if you might reach too high. I can't push that high, that's too tricky, so I'm going to bring my foot lower.

Speaker 1 5:36

And, more importantly, you've modeled making a mistake. And that modeling of making a mistake is so powerful because it's not a big problem. We just tried something. It didn't work, but I can try something different. And so when we reach up and put our foot on that second step oh, too hard, nope, put it back on the first step. We've then modelled that we need to use muscles in our legs to push. And then we've modelled finding our balance. And if we're leaning too far and we feel like we're going to fall and we've gone, oh no, oh no. We've modelled either pulling ourselves back up with our hands, using our core, using our tummy muscles to pull myself back up and you've just modelled all of that thinking, all of that problem solving in two actions One foot up, stepping up. It's a really powerful way to not have to talk through so much but to use yourself to help your child, support that thinking through process.

Speaker 1 6:42

Now it might be that your child finds the first bit really tricky and just that balancing on one leg and placing their foot. So you might over model that bit. You'll know your child and you'll see which bits might look a little bit difficult or might look a little bit uncoordinated. And they're the bits that you can model some different silly things. But physically do it with them. Get up on the playground with them, go down the slide with them. If you're at the swings, don't fall off the swings but model sitting on the swing and leaning too far and coming back up to the middle and having that playfulness, silliness, but going a little bit slower and allowing that time to show and think through and figure out to allow for success.

Speaker 1 7:29

The other one that you can do with the modeling, depending upon your child's language, is if you're modeling how to do the gross motor skill, well then you could be the learner and the child could be the teacher Tell me what to do, I'll copy you you show me, but I'm going to copy exactly what you tell me, or exactly what you say, or exactly what you do, so that then if it doesn't go right, well, it's on me, I was trying. Let's figure it out together. So if we come back to the modeling of, let's say, use the exact same one of climbing up a ladder, and this time your child says put your feet on. And so you'll try and put one foot on, but you're not going to do your hands. And then you'll try and put one foot on, but you're not going to do your hands. And then you'll try and put your second one on, but maybe as you push up you fall backwards To make it really obvious that, oh no, hands on and feet on. Let's try that. And even if you need to help and do a little bit of that helping your child figure it out, but see if you can make it really obvious. Maybe you flail your arms around in circles to make it extra obvious for the bit that didn't work to help them then go hands and feet on and then push, or whatever the language is that they come out with.

Speaker 1 8:46

As long as you understand. It doesn't need to be the words that you would use, really important. If it's words that they're using and you understand and they understand what is meant, I do not care what the word is, it doesn't matter. What's more important in this space is that sort of figuring out how my body moves and how I can do it to be successful. So that's kind of thinking through how we'd use our body to model for a gross motor. Let's think through how we'd use our body to model for a fine motor. And I said the example that we'll use today will be using scissors, because it's quite complex and it requires a bit of bilateral coordination. Go back and have a listen to the episode on that one if you don't know what we're talking about. So how would I model using my body? For bilateral coordination Depends upon where I see the difficulty in the child, for example.

Speaker 1 9:37

If I know the child will try and cut with scissors while they're standing up, well then I might model standing up and dropping things, but most of the time it's once we sit down that we're figuring out what to do. So I might pick my scissors up the wrong way and try and cut and then have a really big frown on my face, put the scissors down, turn them over, pick them up a different way. Maybe this time I pick them up the right way and now maybe I might try and cut, but I haven't picked up the piece of paper and so it's not really working, because I'm just kind of trying to shove my scissors under and shove the bottom blade under the paper and trying to cut, but it's not quite working and on my face I might be frowning and a bit confused. Now your child might actually say, silly, pick up the paper. Or they might be laughing, or they might be frustrated too and not quite sure what's happening. And then I might go, oh, I have two hands hang on and I'll hold the paper with one and I'll cut with the other.

Speaker 1 10:39

If I'm doing that, really well, but we're starting to look at a bit more control with our scissors. Maybe I will cut really far away from where my helping hand is holding. So the paper's bouncing up and down and I don't have much control and I might frown and I might say, hmm, have much control. And I might frown and I might say, hmm, this is a bit tricky, the paper's a bit wobbly, I might hold it closer, and so then I'll cut closer to my helping hand. The same thing, if I'm trying to cut around a shape and trying to have that control with my scissors to start to go around some curves, start to cut some zigzags, you know, ideally we want to be able to go cut, cut and move my helping hand, cut, cut and move my helping hand, cut, cut and move my helping hand. But instead of telling them that I'm going to model, not doing it and that was a bit tricky I wonder what I could do. Oh, let's try If they have an idea, or you can use your own idea and then model, doing it a little bit easier, so you can see again, the power comes in modeling something that isn't working.

Speaker 1 11:40

If what isn't working is how I hold my pencil, if what isn't working is that I'm not using both hands, whatever it might be, we can model what isn't working and then flip that around, share the frustration together, but model something else, maybe something that works a bit better, maybe something that also doesn't work it. You know, it doesn't matter exactly what you model. There is no right or wrong. You can make it as silly as you want. But sharing that together can be really, really, really powerful, and taking the time and going slowly through modeling these things can help your child's brain to catch up and work at the same speed as your brain, because we're allowing time for that extra thinking, that extra cognitive load about how do I need to use my body, how do I need to use my muscles, what can all the different parts of my body do to be successful. So that leads us into the idea of this language bits and pieces.

Speaker 1 12:41

And as we talk about the language side of things, I don't mean the child's or your child's language and ability to express themselves. That very much falls under speech and language therapy. What I mean is your language, how we can look at what language, as an adult, we can use to help break down their thinking about what their motor movements need to be. And my go-to for this is when you're first starting out. Number one it feels really uncomfortable, it's really hard to do, it's really tricky to think about, it doesn't come naturally because, as I said before, we have become masters at walking. We have become masters at running some of us. I still hate running, but we know how to do them and we don't have to actively think about doing them. So to force our brain to actively think about what muscles do I need and what are they doing can be really hard.

Speaker 1 13:38

So to help with this, break it down into big muscle groups. Break it down into what's your head doing, what's your arms slash hands doing, what's your body slash core doing and what are your legs doing, and so this way we don't need to know which muscle in particular we're using, because children don't know all of their muscles and I, you know, would argue a lot of adults can't tell you what all of their muscles are. We know some of them. We don't know all of them. Doesn't really matter. What we do need to know is I use my core and my tummy and my body to help keep me balanced. I can use my legs to bend and stretch, and my legs can help keep me balanced. I can use my head like if my head's tipping too far backwards I might fall, or if I'm looking to the side and it's not working. Or if I'm trying to cut but I'm holding my piece of paper and my scissors really close to my face, that might be a problem. So what does my head need to do? It needs to stay up, nice and tall and away from the paper, and we'll get into these examples a bit more in a second.

Speaker 1 14:47

But we're going to think about it in terms of what do these muscle groups, bigger muscle groups need to do? So things like what does my tummy need to do? I need to have a squeezy tummy. Do I need to have a floppy tummy? If I'm falling, do I need to use my tummy muscles to pull me back up? Or if I'm lying on my back and I'm practicing a little sit-up, is it my tummy muscles that are squeezing or my leg muscles that are pulling me up and we can say turn off your leg muscles, let them go to sleep.

Speaker 1 15:16

Try and squeeze through here, pushing on a belly button or tickling our belly, and see if they can start to notice using those muscles and what that feels like for them, instead of going. Oh, I just sat up helping break down what they're actually doing our leg muscles. Do our legs need to be straight or a little bit bendy? Do they need to be super straight, that they're locked out and what we would call hyper extended, or do they need to be able to move a little bit where we've got a little bit of a bend in our knee. Do I need to balance on one leg first before I can make a step, and do I need to balance and make a little step? Or am I balancing and lifting my leg up a really long way to get on the next step of the ladder?

Speaker 1 16:01

We start to think about breaking down what one leg's doing and what the other leg's doing, or are they both doing the same thing? For example, if we need to jump, what are your legs going to do? Are they going to bend a little bit or a lot? Or in the middle and after they bend a little bit, what are you going to do? How are you going to push? Are you going to push with your hands and are they going to push you up, or are you going to use your leg muscles to push you up into the air? To jump? Which one? What should we try?

Speaker 1 16:30

And so you can see how we can start to break it down into what I'd have a bit of an idea of Okay, so my leg's gonna do this and this is what my tummy's gonna do and this is what my body's gonna do to help make that whole picture overall, and it doesn't matter if you don't know exactly what it is that's supposed to happen. Well, we can say well, watch me, this is how I do it. You tell me what are my arms doing. You tell me what are my legs doing. You tell me, is my head doing anything special? Or we can get a video on youtube it's great and watch somebody else do it and we can figure it out together about what they're doing, and then we can try it for ourselves.

Speaker 1 17:08

But the idea is we're using really specific motor language about what each parts of our body are doing for how long with how much strength. So when I'm pushing, if I'm going to do a jump and I figured out, I need to bend my legs a lot this time. So I'm not just going to bend them a little bit, I'm going to bend them a lot. But then when I push, I'm going to do a little push. Let's try it. I do my little push, but then, oh no, that only got me back to standing. Okay, so this time I've bent my legs a lot, and when I'm gonna push, I'm gonna use really big muscles, I'm gonna do a really strong push and then, yay, look at that, I jumped up in the air. And then it's successful, and so we can then add those little bits of how much strength are we gonna use to complete each task or to complete the activity or whatever it might be that you're doing with your child.

Speaker 1 18:01

So let's think about the language that we might use if we're climbing up a ladder or using scissors because they were two that we talked about before. So, climbing up a ladder, I might walk up to the ladder and say, okay, I'm gonna hold on with my hands, I'm gonna reach and I ladder and say, okay, I'm going to hold on with my hand. So I'm going to reach and I'm going to tell my hand to keep holding. And now I need to balance on my legs. I'm going to lift up my foot and I'm going to balance on one leg. Use my big muscles to keep me balanced. I'm going to put my foot on the step. Oh, not that step, that one was too high on the bottom step. Okay, now I'm ready and I need to push with my leg and I'm going to pull with my arm at the same time. So my leg's going to keep pushing and my arm's going to keep pulling until I'm up nice and tall on this step.

Speaker 1 18:50

Okay, I'm ready, ready, I'm going to push, push, push, push, push, pull, pull, pull, pull, pull. Oh, I made it. Now I'm going to take my next leg and I'm going to put it with my foot and I can balance. And now I can hang out here for a minute and so see how we blended the movements that we were doing as we were modeling with that verbal explanation of actually what my body parts are doing.

Speaker 1 19:18

If you've modeled falling to the side a little bit, say oh no, I've fallen a little bit, okay, I'm going to use my strong legs and I'm going to use my tummy muscles and I'm going to squeeze them and pull, pull, pull, pull myself until I'm back. And so you see again, you can also use your voice and the language that you're using to emphasize effort. I'm going to pull, pull, pull oh, I made it. Or I'm going to push, push, push, push, push. And we can put a bit of effort behind the words that we're using to help them understand the effort that you are physically using in your muscles as well.

Speaker 1 19:53

And so then for the next bit, okay, I'm up on one and now I'm going to let go with one hand and I'm going to reach it up. And where should I hold? Do I hold on the side or do I hold at the front? I'm going to hold at the front and I'm going to tell my hand don't let go, keep squeezing, keep holding, don't let go. And then I'm going to move my next leg. And where's it going to go? Okay, remember, I've got to balance on this leg first, and then I'm going to move my other leg. I'm going to bend it and bring it up and so, again, we're breaking down each step. And the level to which you need to break down each step will vary dramatically depending upon where you've noticed your child having some difficulties. If you notice your child's not having any difficulties and they don't need this extra bit of support, then go for it. But if you notice they're getting a little bit frustrated, then have a go.

Speaker 1 20:42

Start to break down what are different parts and think about, in those muscle groups, what are your legs doing? What does your body have to do? What are your arms or your hands going to have to do? What's your head going to have to do? Are you going to stick your head forwards? Are you going to keep your head straight? Are you going to lean it to the side? Each of those little things to think about just helps your child get ready before they even attempt the task. That's the really nice thing that we can do with modeling is it helps slow them down. They have that time to go through the cognitive process and the thinking, watching you and talking it through with you, before they even attempt to get onto the equipment themselves.

Speaker 1 21:21

We can use the same thing with our scissors. Maybe we look at and talk about how to pick up our scissors. So I'm going to pick up my scissors and I'm going to put one of the loops over my thumb and one of the loops over my pointer finger or my tickle finger or whatever I'm going to call this finger. And then I'm going to put one of the loops over my thumb and one of the loops over my pointer finger or my tickle finger or whatever I'm going to call this finger, and then I'm going to tuck all my other fingers so they're out of the way. Or maybe I put one over my thumb and I put two fingers in, because I actually prefer, when I'm using my scissors, to have two fingers in. It gives me a little bit of extra strength and so you can play around with exactly what it is bit of extra strength, and so you can play around with exactly what it is but then, once I have them in, I'm going to use my strong muscles in my hand to open them up and then I'm going to squeeze them together. I'm going to open them up and then I'm going to squeeze them together.

Speaker 1 22:04

Or maybe the motor plan that we talk about is actually cutting around some of those corners and those zigzags that we were talking about. So in this case, I'm going to open and line them up. I'm going to use my eyes to line up my scissors on the line and then I'm going to squeeze them, which you can do a little squeeze and then I'm going to open them up again. I'm going to use my eyes and check that they're still lined up on that line, and then I'm going to give them a little squeeze and then I can see that we came to the end of the line. So I'm going to open up my scissors and I'm going to use my helping hand to turn the paper around to help me line up my scissors again in the different direction this time, and do a little snip or a little squeeze so you can see how you can start to build a language around what's one hand doing, that helping hand? Is it going to let go of the paper, or is it going to keep holding and keep holding until we get to the end? Or does it need to let go of the paper, or is it going to keep holding and keep holding until we get to the end? Or does it need to let go and hold somewhere else? And so we can start to again think through.

Speaker 1 23:03

Now, for a fine motor task, we're probably thinking through more intricate movements within our hand. So, like scissors, we're thinking through what one hand's doing, what the other hand's doing, what individual fingers are doing, because I don't really need to think about what my legs are doing because I'm sitting on a chair. I don't, shouldn't, or maybe don't need to think as much about what my tummy is doing, because I don't need to focus on sitting up all the time, because the focus is on the bit that's tricky. And this is a really, really important point when we look at supporting motor skills. It doesn't matter when we're focusing on a tricky motor skill. It doesn't matter what everything else is that's happening. So if the focus is on scissors, I don't mind if we don't have perfect posture. I wouldn't mind if we're trying to do it upside down, I wouldn't mind if we're trying to do it balanced on one leg, but if we're slouching on the back of the chair that's okay. Because as we get more confident in the fine motor movements required, then we might start to critique and go oh, I wonder if you could do that sitting up, or I wonder if you could do that without leaning on your elbow and instead keeping both of your arms, using strong muscles in your arms and your shoulders to keep both of your arms off the table. But we're only going to do that once we have the confidence and once we know what the motor skills are that we're doing within the specific task.

Speaker 1 24:26

Reason being think back to that cognitive load side of things. We don't want to have to think about every single thing. I don't want to have to remember sitting up to when I'm already thinking about so much to do with how I'm going to use my hands. Focus on the important bits, focus on the bits that are motivating for your child, and that's where we add the extra support, the extra language, the extra modeling, because when they have their success in that area it's so much easier to then put the effort in the next bit. That's challenging because they know they can do it. They've had that experience of something was tricky, but I had some help and I figured it out and I did it. Not someone did it for me, I did it. And if I can do that, I can do the next thing as well. So we start to build up a little bit of this self-confidence, problem-solving skills and this persistence, just by using our language and using our body to model to help your child figure things out.

Speaker 1 25:22

Now, there are not always times when you have the time to do this, so always think about those pockets of time within your day where you might have the time. Maybe it's the weekend, maybe it's bedtime, maybe it's first thing in the morning, maybe it's when your other kids are off, at play dates or after school clubs or at school. Think about using those different pockets of time to play within this space, to give those different prompts. Maybe it's within play, maybe in play what we're doing is an obstacle course and you can break down the activities. Maybe your child really wants to do some drawing, so we can break down how we're holding the pencil or holding the scissors, and then we can start to use this language and you can start to build your confidence in different ways, to model, different ways to use your language, to help build that independence and help build that confidence in motor skills. And it's the same in the classroom as well A little bit for teachers out there it's the exact same. Maybe in PE and gym time, as you're explaining things, you can take a little bit more time If you know there are some kids in your class that find things difficult and instead of saying we're going to jump, it might be we're going to jump with a really big push.

Speaker 1 26:32

These are tall ones ones, guys. We need to bend our legs a lot and then push to jump over this. Or maybe, if we're looking at kicking a ball or throwing a ball, we can think about okay, so as I'm going to throw the ball, I'm going to hold it with one hand and I'm going to twist my body, I'm going to balance on my leg and then I'm going to bring my arm forwards and give it a big push until I let go, and the ball goes that way, and so you can just then help them break down what some of those movements are that are required to complete these skills successfully. So those are the two really big takeaways from today. When we think about supporting motor skills, think about your language and, within your language, think about the big muscle group areas. What are the legs doing? What's the body doing? What's the arm slash hands doing? What's the head doing? To break down what's happening for each skill required, and then think about your use of modeling. How can you slow it down, how can you break it down and how can you model something going wrong and figuring it out to help build a bit of that confidence.

Speaker 1 27:34

Well, that brings us to the end of the motor skills season. That is two seasons down already. So I hope you guys have enjoyed the motor skills season as always. Please, please, please, rate, review, share the podcast with friends, family, strangers, anyone you think that might benefit from having a listen. Please do share it around, share it with your teachers, share it among colleagues, whoever you think might benefit from this. Please do let them know that they can come and have a listen so we can all learn together about different ways we can help and support the children in our lives. But for now I'm gonna let you guys go have a great week, weekend, whatever it is when you happen to have some time to listen to the podcast, hope you manage to take some time for yourselves as well. No-transcript.