Baby's Development Toddlers and Preschoolers School-age Challenges

 

ABCs of learning readiness

Comfort and Challenge

We learn when we have a good fit between our internal world and our outside world. When we have enough comfort and internal resource to meet a new situation that matches us in challenge, we thrive. Too little challenge, boredom. Too much challenge, stress.  Too little internal resource, stress. Often children have inadequate internal resource, so what seems to be age-appropriate challenge creates stress instead of learning. When stressed, children either withdraw or act out to relieve the intensity of the stress.

Text Box: School age children By primary school problems of immature movement and sensori-motor integration can add up to challenge many aspects of a child’s life. The impacts are widely varied, including: - Poor attention - Hyperactivity - Bright underperformer - Problems with reading, writing or math - Impulsivity - Difficult to transition or adapt to change - Oppositional - Anxiety, avoidance or fears - Autism spectrum disorders - Sleep problems - Tires easily - Poor social skills - Clumsiness Toddlers and pre-schoolers Early signs of neural immaturity include: - high need disposition & tantrums - hyperactivity or passivity - sensory and sensori-motor problems - language delay and speech problems - skipped or delayed movement development

Learning with ease requires that the challenge level be matched to the level of capacity of the person. As complex human beings, we have many different capacities, based on many different systems of our body and mind. Some of our systems may be sensitive or may be immature.

Examples of key systems that need to be well organized for learning to be easy:

      - sense of touch

      - sense of gravity

      - sense of differentiation and connections within the body and brain

      - sense of movement

      - sense of space

      - vision

      - hearing

      - sense of self

Our nervous system and brain, the most complicated system, can really get confused. Our brains depend on the key systems, above, to be well organized. Only when these foundational systems are working well for us, can the brain do its job of creative thinking and problem solving. As well, the ability to calm ourselves, to be quiet and to focus, relies on the fundamental internal organization of these senses.

 

ABCs of learning readiness

To be ready to learn in a school setting, the pre-academic skills required are:

      - attention

      - balance

      - coordination

(Goddard)

These pre-academic ABCs are all skills that children begin working with in utero, in the first year of life, and through toddler hood and early childhood. Attachment parenting and developmental movement are nature’s primary design for developing the skills of meeting the world in the fullest sense for learning. We’ll focus here on developmental movement. 

Developmental movement and reflexes activate primary neural hook-ups that structure and organize the brain. When given appropriate play opportunities, children just naturally do these developmental movements. These natural sensori-motor activities respect the child’s innate capacities and help the processes of the developing sense of self, vision, hearing and many aspects of the physical body.

 

NeuroDevelopment in Action

Children’s actions and creations show us many clues to what is going on inside their minds.  Through their behavior and performance, children show us which systems are sensitive and which aspects of their development are delayed.

For example, a child may be withdrawn with poor social skills, even receiving a label of autism spectrum disorder. We would view the child has having his own specific set of system sensitivities and immaturities. One child with the label may have problems with visual, touch, sense of gravity and his sense of body. With overwhelmed systems, a child may be so stressed in these areas that he retreats from eye contact, hugs, moves awkwardly and shows anxiety. A child with different configuration of stressed systems may be hyperactive or oppositional. Each child is unique in his specific set of challenges and the appropriate remedies.

 

Nature’s design for learning readiness

Developmental movements and reflexes organize the brain, vision, hearing and other senses as well as body in all key areas. These natural movements evolve from the first year of life into more complex activities as the child grows.

 

Is movement the problem or the solution?     Yes

In hyperactivity, immature movement is a big problem. The child’s body is running the show in immature, involuntary reflexes. The child doesn’t have command of himself. Involuntary reflexes are immature movements.

The developmental movements and reflexes are present for body and brain function at specific ages and stages. As with any stage, maturation involves integrating early development and moving to more complexity and choice. We don’t want children to get trapped in involuntary activities; we want them to be able to make good choices. We can use developmental movement as a natural resource to mature behavior appropriately.

 

Play: well matched challenge and ease

Play is a flow state when challenge and ease are well matched. In play we have a sense of suspended time and engaged focus with activity. Developmental movement includes sensori-motor and reflex integration through play therapies, educational programs and therapeutic massage.

 

Catherine Burns, movement therapist, RSMT, and craniosacral therapist, specializes in core neural integration through developmental movement. Catherine provides support for babies, toddlers, pre-schoolers and children in primary grades. Her special concern is a sound organization of the mind for attention, cognition and the child’s emerging sense of self.

 

Baby's Development Toddlers and Preschoolers School-age Challenges