I am super excited for us to dive into the topic of coordination today! Believe it or not, our body’s ability to perform coordinated movements like picking up a glass of water, running, or jumping is a rather complex process involving numerous body systems. So today, video we are going to break this topic down so we can understand what coordination is, how our body makes it happen, how coordination develops in kids, and some fun and simple activities that you can do to improve coordination. So, let’s dive in….
The Oxford definition of coordination is: The ability to use different parts of the body together smoothly and efficiently. To truly appreciate what that definition means, let’s look at what happens when we perform a simple task like picking up a glass of water.
First, our brain must select and activate the correct muscles needed to pick up our arm and reach forward toward the glass. As we reach forward, our eyes and the sensory receptors in our muscles and joints (proprioceptive system) are giving us information about where the cup is, where our body is, etc. helping our hand move to the exact location of the glass in order to grasp it. Now that we have made it to the glass, we have to grab it. So, again more muscles are chosen and begin working to grab the glass and move our arm and hand to bring the glass to our mouth. As we bring the glass to our mouth, our eyes and proprioceptive system are again providing information about where the cup is in relation to our mouth and detecting any obstacles that might be in our way.
Whew…… As you can see, that one simple task requires a whole lot of moving parts to complete it. And if picking up a glass of water is that complex, imagine what is happening in our bodies when we ride a bike, drive a car, or play a musical instrument.
This is where the concept of coordination “The ability to use different parts of the body together smoothly and efficiently.” comes into play. In order for our bodies to perform controlled and coordinated movements, multiple systems in our body have to work together.
- Our muscles, tendons and joints must be able to create the actual movement or force.
- Our visual system must gather the information from our environment so we know where the object is we want to pick up or if there are obstacles in our path, etc.
- Our Proprioceptive system must be able to detect where our body is in space as we perform the task.
- And most importantly, we need our cerebellum to take all of this information and put it together. Pr
The cerebellum is an incredibly important part of the human brain. It is located in the back of our brain and sits just above our brain stem. The cerebellum contains only 10% of the brain’s volume but 50% of neurons. Isn’t that amazing. The main function of the cerebellum is not to initiate movement. Instead, the cerebellum receives and takes in all of the information that our sensory system is receiving like information from our eyes and joints and muscles. It then uses this information to modify the outgoing motor commands from our brain. And these fine tweaks and modifications are what create accurate and precise movements, otherwise known as coordinated movements.
So, let’s go back to our example of picking up the glass of water. Without the cerebellum coordinating our movement, we might:
- Use too much or too little force as we reach toward the glass to pick it up. If too much force is used we will knock the glass over or reach past it. If too little force is used, then our hand will not make it to the glass.
- If the sensory information from our eyes and proprioceptor cells isn’t taken into account then we may reach in the wrong direction entirely.
- And when we lift the glass and bring it to our mouth, there must be constant attention to the sensory information so we don’t tip the glass and spill the water, or bring the glass up to our mouth so hard that we knock a tooth out.
There is one more important concept to discuss in terms of coordination and that is motor learning. So, while the process I just described does occur when we move, it does get easier and more efficient for our bodies over time. And that is because of the concept of motor learning. In the simplest terms, as we repeat a task over and over again, our bodies learn how to coordinate our movements so that it becomes almost automatic. The first time a baby picks up a cup, you can almost see all of those processes occurring that we described above. Their brains and bodies are working really hard to coordinate the movement and sensory feedback. But, when an adult picks up glass, it is done with ease and precision because they have practiced it thousands and thousands of times. Does, this mean that our bodies are not going through the processes I described above? No, it just means that the processes are smoother and more efficient because the body has practiced it so many times before.
And this takes us to the concept of developing coordination. It largely comes down to practice. Of course we have to be sure that all of the building blocks are present. Does the child have good vision, hearing, body awareness? Do their muscles have appropriate tone, strength, and length. But learning how to coordinate movements is all about exposure to the activity and practice. As babies and kids we intuitively know this and practice. Babies will play with the same toy over and over again until they master it. When they are learning to walk, they will stand up, take a step, plop down on the floor and do it again and again. And when you think about the steps and information integration that it takes to do specific tasks and movement, it makes sense that it takes so many repetitions.
Helping kids improve and strengthen their coordination skills comes down to exposing them to new and challenging activities and letting them safely practice. Here are a few of my favorite activities broken down by category:
Eye/Hand Coordination: The ability for the eye to guide the hand.
- Catching a Ball
- Using Sidewalk Chalk
- Stringing Beads
- Playing Card Games like slap jack or war
- Hitting a Ball with a Bat
- Dribbling a Ball
- Play Jacks (I’m probably showing my age with this one)
- Popping Bubbles with your finger
- Fine Motor Activities: writing, cutting, coloring, and craft projects
Bilateral Coordination Activities for the Upper Extremity (Arm/Hand) Activities: Using both of our arms/hands together.
Lower Extremity (Legs) Activities:
- Gallop
- Skip
- Walking on a line or balance beam
- Hop Scotch
- Obstacle Course
- Dribbling a Soccer Ball
Whole Body Activities:
- Jumping Jacks
- Jumping Rope
- Cartwheels
- Twister
- Animal Walks
- Yoga
- Learning a Dance Routine (Chicken Dance, Hokey Pokey, or the Floss)
Wow, that was a lot of information. I hope you found it helpful. I also hope you found some helpful ideas for ways to work on coordination. Try some of them out and let me know what you think. Do you have other ideas? Please share them in the comments.
Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you have a great week!
-Heather
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