In the previous post, I discussed the two characteristics of
movement—goal oriented and variation.
When movement is purposeful rather than aimless running
around, new connections in the brain are not being formed and learning does not
occur. In other words, goal-oriented
movement that requires some sort of problem-solving is required for the brain
to develop, which typically occurs in a growing child.
Example 1. A baby
crawls towards an attractive object or to get into mom’s lap.
Example 2. A toddler walks, crawls under tables, or climbs
up small furniture in order to retrieve a toy.
Example 3. An older child may jump, hop, skip as a part of a
game that holds some goal.
Example 3. An adult
bends over, turns around, steps backward, and moves in multiple ways while
searching a lost item or cleaning the house.
Movement of our body segments and our entire body through
space in order to fulfill a task also provides sensory input
to our central nervous system in terms of visual, vestibular, and
proprioceptive stimuli. Optimal sensory
input leads to improved alertness, attention, and conduces us to better engage
in tasks.
If there is hardly any purpose in movement as displayed by
children who are hyperactive, movement is dysfunctional and disruptive. These
children do walk, run around, and may seem to be typical to an average observer. However, they have
difficulty sitting in a place, are fidgety, or are always on the go. Engagement
in a single task is difficult for them, attention and focus are short-lived for
a few seconds to a couple minutes. Hence learning does not occur, but rather
there is a narrow repertoire of movements and task abilities.Sitting in a classroom, mingling with other kids, attending a birthday party become very difficult.
In my clinical experience, children who are
hyperactive , can’t sit still, can’t
sustain any activity generally calm down when encouraged or enticed into heavy
work and purposeful activity. Sensory Integration has been shown to be beneficial for children with ADHD. 