Movement programmes have been shown to help children with learning and behavioural difficulties. The aim of a movement programme is to treat the underlying causes of learning and behavioural difficulties, by using activities and movement patterns, to develop neurological organisation, and in some cases, to integrate reflexes, whilst in others, to address coordination difficulties. The structure of the movements follows similar patterns to those naturally developed in very early childhood. These early childhood activities such as crawling, climbing, balancing, and swinging, are vital for a child’s neurodevelopment, and for integrating the primitive reflexes. However, in today’s world children are not playing as much as they used to, and are much more sedentary. The advent of the car seat, fear of allowing children on the floor for hygiene reasons, the lack of playing out on the streets and playground games, means their natural activity is not happening as frequently. As a result, children are growing up with poor coordination, poor gross motor and hand-eye skills, poor balance, as well as poor integration of the reflexes. These all have an impact on a child’s learning and behaviour and cause hidden underlying difficulties, which are not understood by parents and teachers.
There is evidence that children are born with the tissues of biological intelligence in the brain structure, but these only become fully activated when children move, explore and manipulate the world. It is assumed that the skills of writing, spelling and reading are the basics of learning, but these activities are now beginning to be viewed as very complex neurological processes that develop easily when there is good sensory motor development. Without this essential basis, it seems that the foundations are poorly organised and this leads to various problems later on.
Coordination develops through three basic levels: reflex-motor, gross motor and fine motor. These levels of sensory motor development build upon each other and if any level is not properly developed there is a knock on effect to the other levels with the result of a detrimental effect on the child’s learning. For example, if a child misses out the stage of crawling this can lead to comprehension problems in reading. Researchers, such as Houston (1982), Ayers (1972), and Hannaford (1995) verify that sensory-motor integration is linked to school readiness. Research also shows that children who spent an extra hour each day in the gym performed better in examinations than less active children (Hannaford 1995).
Research studies have also shown that the development of motor skills facilitates academic readiness and learning and that when physical education time is increased to one-third of school time, academic scores go up. Further research showed that spelling, reading, auditory short-term memory, arithmetic and visual attention to detail were significantly improved among a group of children with learning problems who took part in a Perceptual Movement Programme.
One aspect that is improved by movement programmes are retained primitive reflexes. These are present during the first six months after birth. As the nervous system develops, they are inhibited or transformed and the persistence of primitive reflexes beyond their normal time span (12 months) interferes with subsequent development. They can affect reading amongst other things. Research has also shown that retained primitive reflexes may have a detrimental effect on behaviour, motor control, sensory perception, eye-hand coordination, and cognition.
Primitive reflexes have the capacity to upset the maturation process and decrease the brain’s ability efficiently to process sensory information. Movement programmes help develop the brain for learning. They enable a child to concentrate and stick to tasks better and are therefore a vital component in learning. For example, the persistence of the Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Righting reflex seems to disrupt the emergence of gross motor abilities such as rolling, creeping, crawling, riding a bicycle and catching or kicking a ball. The eyes have to cross the midline when reading and there seems to be a link with the ATNR directly interfering with saccadic eye movements when reading and/or disruption of the general development of visual skills which are an important mechanical component for reading.
One reason as to how movement programs may work could be due to the role of the cerebellum. The cerebellum is at the base of the brain and is associated with motor skills. It is responsible for coordinating movement, planning, motor activities, learning and remembering of physical skills and for some cognitive abilities. Clinical observations suggest that mental activities are coordinated in the cerebellum. At least eighty studies in 1995 suggested strong links between cerebellum and memory, spatial perception, language, attention, emotion, non-verbal areas and even decision making. These findings strongly implicate the value of movement in affecting learning. Dyslexic children have been found to have significant difficulties in the development of motor skills (Fawcett and Nicholson, 1995) and direct evidence of cerebellar impairments in dyslexic children and adults has also been shown.
Another reason as to why these motor programmes may work could be due to the role of the vestibular system. One of the claims of many movement programs is that they have an impact on the balance system, for example, McPhillips et al; (2000) provided further evidence of ‘a link between reading difficulties and the control of movement, in children,’ and that children with specific reading problems have problems that extend beyond the range of underlying language-related deficits (e.g. they have difficulties with balance and motor control)’.
The vestibular system, located in the inner ear, provides information about gravity, balance and movement. It is claimed that there is a correlation between vestibular problems and reading and writing in children with learning disabilities. Most children should be able to balance on one leg for fifteen seconds and if they are unable to do this it can often indicate reading problems.
Research conducted by Dr Alweena Awan, in a West Yorkshire primary school, showed that the SIMPLE movement programme raised children’s learning and performance. The SIMPLE (Sensory Integration Movement Programme for Learning Enhancement) runs like a PE program and covers all the necessary requirements of the national curriculum, but within its activities, it has a therapy program. This programme has also been designed to be used as a home program. The home program has only the elements of the therapy part of the programme and is very easy to use. Part of both these program is bilateral sequencing. Bilateral sequencing is essential so that the child is able to sequence his or her body in a logical sequential way. If the child is unable to do this then other sequencing activities are difficult such as learning the times table.