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| Latest Alphabet Fitness News |
July 1, 2004
Excerpts taken from Wellness, Inc.’s presentation on Alphabet Fitness to the Massachusetts Governor’s Committee on Physical Fitness and Sport
Recent early intervention experience working with children ages 0-3 yrs. in the State of Massachusetts has revealed a major prevalence of motor planning difficulties in small children. This difficulty often presents itself as a speech delay to the parents, and thus the reason for the child’s referral for assessment by their local Early Intervention program. It is important to note that the child’s cognition is generally developmentally appropriate. The reason for their lack of speech is a difficulty imitating the movements of the speech muscles – fine motor muscles which are more difficult to coordinate due to the lack of visual input. For example, we can see our hands clap to give us feedback as to what we are doing; but, frequently, we cannot see our lips move to know how to make the equivalent sound.
Aside from the delay in speech, the major impact is the social-emotional stress on a child that has the cognition to know that something is expected of them (imitation) and he/she just does not have the motor planning capacity to perform the desired response. Often, by the age of three, children have already developed strategies to avoid these types of demands and resulting frustration. The first step in helping a child and family overcome this motor planning difficulty is to increase awareness of the body, all of its parts and all the movements that these parts do (simple movements to complex movements; large movements to fine movements).
Today's Question: Why are more and more children having difficulty with body awareness?
One Answer: Lack of bodily experience and different movement opportunities.
As a pediatric PT, working with Wellness, explains. “If we think about it, changes in our children’s motor development make sense as children are raised in our modern society of car seats, carry-a-thongs, strollers, jumpers, bouncy seats, etc. We have unwittingly created tools to help parents/caregivers have more mobility without fully understanding our young population’s need for self-mobility. It is this mobility, and the environmental sensory stimulation it provides, that teaches the muscles, the nerves, and the brain how to coordinate, move around and function in the environment. There are “windows of opportunity” in the developing brain of the young child. It is filled with nerve cells just waiting to be stimulated in order to develop a pathway, a motor memory. If those nerves are not stimulated, they cannot form strong links. That is why it is increasingly important to start young in providing this physical activity in such an effective and language-related format such as Alphabet Fitness."
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