Nursery World - Nursery Equipment: Cross-Laterality

Alternating actions on either sides of the body, like drumming or riding a wheeled toy, need to be encouraged. Annette Rawstrone explains why.

Alternating actions on either side of the body, known as cross-lateral movements, encourage connections between the two hemispheres of the brain and help the limbs, eyes and ears to work together across the body.

Even in utero babies are starting to establish important core links between brain development, learning and movement through cross-lateral movements. Newborn babies change position in a cross-lateral way and these side to side movements continue throughout early childhood with such seemingly simple actions as babies reaching over their bodies, stretching and rolling, then eventually crawling and walking, establishing the foundations for later skills.

Movement play specialist Penny Greenland, director of Jabadao, explains, 'Cross-lateral is simply one of many interlinked movement patterns. It's underpinned by five other patterns and is about connecting the body. A baby's task is to inhabit its body, connecting the core of the body to the edges, upper and lower. Cross-lateral is the diagonal connections in the body that give access to three-dimensional movement.'

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