Teaching children right from left can be a difficult concept. The ability to determine whether you are using your right or left hand requires higher level spatial awareness, body awareness and motor planning skills. This right or left hand poster is from the Right or Left Games packet. You can download it for free (see […]
If you need to sneak in some bimanual and fine motor skills practice with academic material, the Slide Bag Quiz is perfect! I was reading a blog post by Dr. Jean (excellent blog) on individual response techniques and she suggested a slide bag. It seemed like a creative idea so I gave it a try. […]
Frontiers in Psychology published research on the relationship between motor skills, cognitive function, and school performance in 45 students from 8 to 14 years of age. Each participant completed the following to assess different skill areas: 1) Touch Test Disc for motor skill coordination, 2) Shuttle Run Speed—running back and forth for agility, 3) Academic […]
Pediatrics International published research on 100 Brazilian children (ages 8-11 years old) evaluating interlimb coordination and its relationship to their academic performance. Each child was assessed with the Bruininks–Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency and the Academic Performance Test. Participants were grouped into low (<25%) and high (>75%) academic achievers. The results indicated: a significant difference between groups […]
GROSS MOTOR SKILLS AND SCISSOR USE The ability to complete the functional task of using scissors requires fine motor skills, visual perceptual skills, coordination skills and gross motor skills. Gross motor skills involved in scissor use refers to the postural control and bilateral coordination that is required for scissor skills. Efficient control of the larger […]
Encourage fine motor skills, bilateral skills and separation of the hand with this super cute activity – Paper Clip People. Download the printable and see the directions at https://www.yourtherapysource.com/freepaperclippeople.html [subscribe2]
Are you familiar with double doodles? It is a Brain Gym® bilateral drawing activity to help with eye hand coordination, spatial awareness, right/left discrimination and visual discrimination skills. Here is a new app that facilitates double doodling called Paint My Wings, from one of my favorite developers, Toca Boca. Of course it is cute and […]
Taking time out to perform specific home exercise programs can be very difficult during the busy lives of today’s children and parents. Try to make it easier for parents by suggesting activities that can be carried out throughout the normal routine of the day. Bilateral integration skills (the ability to use both sides of the […]
Here is a classic bilateral coordination exercise freebie from the 25 Bilateral Coordination Exercises. It is an instructional hand out on how to do the Cross Crawl exercise, including a QR code to link to a video demonstration of the exercise. You can download the freebie at the bottom of this post. If you are […]
Here are 5 ways to teach right versus left: 1. Verbal Reinforcement: Every opportunity you have verbally state right from left. For example, when dressing a child say “put your right arm in the sleeve”. When turning left in a car or walking on the street say “let’s take a left here”. 2. Visual Reinforcement: […]