Child development: Movement - On the go

Six-month-old Reuben Robinson from Essex hit the headlines recently when he amazed his mother by walking, a good six months before many children take their first steps. Now the telephone cord is being pulled and he keeps trying to eat the houseplants, but what effect might his early walking have on his development?

A child's early movements, such as stretching and crawling, are essential for their development because they help to kick-start the brain. By starting to walk so early, Reuben may have missed establishing the foundations for some important skills.

Educational kinesiologist Ghislaine Freedman says, 'From the first week of life in utero, we make connections between our sensory input and muscle responses, establishing core links between brain development, learning and movement.'

- Gravity is our first sense - It develops through the canals of the inner ear, which maintain body balance through muscular activation.

- Listening and communication - At four and a half months in utero, the foetus responds to mother's voice with specific muscle movements, anchoring hearing to movements.

- Neural networks - The brain develops its neural connections through movement.

- Foundations of learning - Movements create muscular patters on which to build learning.

- Frontal lobes - Movement and rhythm stimulate the frontal lobes of the neo-cortex.

This important link between movement and brain development continues once the child is born. Penny Greenland, director of JABADAO, the National Centre for Movement, Learning and Health, says, 'Our brains double in weight over about the first two years of our lives. This isn't because of new cells being created, but because of new connections being made. Movement helps to build these connections and to produce myelin, a fatty substance which coats parts of the nerve pathways, allowing nerve impulses to travel from ten to 100 times more rapidly.'

Tummy time

'Research has shown that early walkers have a hyper-advanced sense of balance but lack skills such as concentration and sitting still,' says Sally Goddard Blythe, co-director of the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology. She stresses the need for children during their first year of life to have plenty of 'tummy time' on the floor. 'It is the best playground of all for babies - forget expensive toys and equipment,' she says. 'Babies need to be given the opportunity to develop the strength of body control for themselves. Through tummy time, children learn to hold their neck up and strengthen their shoulders and upper body. I call this the putting in of vocabulary of movement, which supports the very many later functions such as good posture, balance and hand-eye co-ordination.'

In tummy time a child learns:

- to turn and lift head

- head control

- control of upper body

- to strengthen back and arms

- hand grip

- to wriggle

- to roll over.

Penny Greenland suggests that it is not helpful for children to be kept confined in prams or strapped into seats for long periods of time. 'The more sedentary a child is, then the more likely it is there will be a knock-on effect on future development. The human body is designed to move. If we were meant to be still, we'd have a stick for a spine instead of 33 wobbly bones and wing nuts on our elbows so that we could lock them off!,' she says.

'Small children move all the time because they are responding to a biological drive to develop well - physically, emotionally, socially and cognitively. Missing out early movement play is like missing out the foundations of a house - you never know what cracks and problems may appear later on.

From being positioned on their stomach, babies can get into a crawling position when their bodies are strong enough. Crawling is important for the active exploration of the world and for what Ghislaine Freedman terms the 'floor gymnasium'. Crawling helps a child's development through:

- integration of the two halves of the brain's motor cortex - the 'mind/body' connection

- true creativity, understanding and learning occurs when the left (logic) hemisphere of the brain and the right (global) hemisphere are used together

- strengthening of legs and limbs

- understanding that we have two side of the body and how to use and co-ordinate them

- balance in movement

- spatial awareness, which if not learned properly can cause problems such as clumsiness, being slow to learn left and right, reversal of letters when reading and writing, and movement challenges such as balancing and spinning

- eye-hand co-ordination

- hand grip.

'Crawling is a full work-out for our bodies and encourages both side of the body to work together - it gives a sense of symmetry. Watching a child crawl really shows this,' says Jennie Lindon, child psychologist and early years consultant. 'Children quickly get speedy once they start crawling and quickly develop sequences of movement.'

Own pace

'All children vary - a few do not crawl or bottom-shuffle but go straight to being upright and walking,' says Ms Lindon. 'But nothing I have come across says it is good to fast-track children to start walking. Children need to be allowed to go at their own pace.'

Children who start walking much quicker than the norm may return at a later time to stages they have missed, such as early belly crawling. Penny Greenland says, 'Learning doesn't happen in neat hierarchical stages - just because we can walk doesn't mean we don't still need to spend time on the floor rolling, crawling and playing on our tummies. We have noted through research that even when adults give children huge amounts of encouragement, they can still miss out areas of development at the textbook time, but then return to them later. In particular, recent evidence from our research partners showed the majority of children missed out on belly-crawling up to three years of age, but nearly all children happily took to belly-crawling from three onwards. This has real implications for the ways we support young children, not just in nurseries but also in schools. Children need to be fully physical in all they do. It is not naughty or wilful; it's what their body needs.'

The importance of early movement holds many implications for good practice in childcare settings. This is emphasised by Jennie Lindon, who says, 'Early years practitioners need to be aware of the stages, relish them and give a child the time and space to be mobile. It is important to highlight the literal steps along the way to a child crawling, standing and walking.

'Babies don't need to be propped upright and made to sit up. Practitioners can be creative in getting crawling babies outside, such as taking out suitable floor coverings and surfaces.

JABADAO has developed a five-day Developmental Movement Play course that has inspired many practitioners to change their practice. Penny Greenland says, 'At the start of training, practitioners report that their settings are crammed full. After the first two days of training, they go back and remove the furniture so that children can use the floor to move as they wish. Tables are the first thing to be taken out - it's the adults who want them, not children.'

She says a six-month-old who is walking should be 'celebrated', but also given plenty of opportunities to experience floor-based movement, such as rolling or crawling.

CASE STUDY

Educational kinesiologist Ghislaine Freedman says that one of the first questions she asks when a child attends her north London clinic is, 'Did he crawl?' If the child has not crawled and is still unable to, then she will teach him. She believes that when crawling has been achieved, learning can take place.

Fred, two and a half years old, first visited Ms Freedman's clinic two months ago. He had severe developmental delays caused by heart problems at birth, including being non-verbal.

'He looked like a beautiful rag-doll, just peering into my face with big brown eyes,' she says. 'He had learned to walk at around 20 months, but never crawled, and was very limp.

'I first started to passively cross-crawl him on his back, by alternatively pressing opposite hip/leg and shoulder/arm on the front or back of the body. I instructed his mother to do the same exercise for 20 minutes every day.

'I also instructed her to rock him (releasing the low back and sacrum and nerve stimulation), swing him, and put him on his tummy on a big rubber ball, for vestibular and visual stimulation.

'I saw him again twice, giving him a personally tailored programme. The last time I saw Fred he came running in, exploring the whole room and squeezing under my chair. He was laughing, showing curiosity, maintaining visual contact and saying a few simple words and lots of noises!

'His mother, obviously very moved by the change in her child, could not believe the difference the work has made.'

FURTHER INFORMATION

- 'Twist and shout', Nursery World, 14 December 2006

- 'Let's get physical', Nursery World, 16 February 2006

- The Well Balanced Child by Sally Goddard Blythe, Hawthorn Press, £12.99

- JABADAO Developmental Movement Play Report and CD-Rom, £5 per copy

- Emerging themes from a six-year Action Research project exploring physical development practice in the early years curriculum: orders via info@jabadao.org, www.jabadao.org.