The Brain: The Effects Of Learning To Hop On The Brain

*Physical development: At this stage the child learns to hop, write, sew, skip, ride a bicycle, jump from height, thread a needle, and do buttons and shoe laces.

From 9 months – 3 years babies will learn to walk, run, jump and hop using their gross motor skills. They have more control over their movements allowing them to point, hold small objects using the fine pincer grasp and gain more independence in toilet training.

Whilst playing the children will begin to learn skills such as balance and coordination, throwing, catching, running skipping and jumping however none of these skills can be learnt if the child does not learn the movement skills. They need to learn hand-eye coordination this is when the brain will learn to make the hands and eyes work together resulting in the children being able to play catch, foot-eye coordination this starts when babies begin to learn to walk up the stairs but can then be extended when the child learns to kick a ball, balance this is learnt over time depending on the age of the child, when the child begins to learn these skills through physical activity their central nervous system will also begin to develop which will in turn help their muscles, glands and organs. This is applied into my practice by taking the children in to thee garden. When in the garden I make obstacle courses for the children with crates that range it heights and sizes, tyres and the slide. It can very day to day to teach the children different things. But by using the different height crates it allows the children to learn to balance by themselves, the slide allows the children to climb. We also have balls that the children play with but depending on the age of the child would depend on how it is used. If the child is 18 months or younger then I would

According to Beek, Peper, and Stegeman (1995), “the motor control theories provide an explanation on how the nervous system will solve the degrees of freedom problem and serve to direct movement command.” The following theories are the generalized motor program theory and the dynamical systems theory. The GMP theory “proposes that the movement plan is retrieved from memory within the central nervous system and neural instructions are sent down to the effectors via the efferent pathways.” The dynamical systems approach on the other hand, “does not propose a hierarchical control, but suggests that movements emerge through self-organization of the interaction of the body and environment.” It can be said that everybody’s “bodily movements occur in the context of the everyday functioning of people while realizing specific task goals.” As a general, yet acquired rule, “such movements involve the participation of multiple joints and limbs.” Moreover, when in action, these body parts are “coordinated and are brought into proper relation to one another as well as to the surrounding layout of surface.” The coordination of these body parts may “look relatively simple, as in picking up an object, or relatively complicated, as in juggling, performing an attacking forehand drive in table tennis or playing the drums.” To the psychomotor scientist or researcher, however, “all coordination is complex in that he or she is confronted with the challenge to explain

A new baby cannot hold up his or her head alone. Yet, within a few months, the baby will be able to sit alone. This is because control of the spine and central nervous system develops from the top of the head down to the base of the spine. You can see this control developing in a baby as he or she starts to hold the head without support. Similarly, a new-born baby waves his or her arms around vaguely, yet in nine months’ time will find the tiniest crumb or piece of Lego easy to pick up with the thumb and finger. This is because the nervous system also develops from the spinal cord out to the extremities (hands and feet).

Hindbrain structure that controls motor movement coordination, balance, equilibrium and muscle tone: is the cerebellum

What began as involuntary movement and reflexes at birth, by 6 months have become voluntary movements. By 2 years the fine motor skills are beginning to develop. Gross motor skills involve the large muscles of the body that enable such functions as crawling, kicking, sitting upright and rolling over. It is a little harder for an infant to walk because they are top heavy and their thighs are too big to support their little feet. Most infants, starting at nine months begins to learn how to walk. Fine motor skills are necessary to engage in smaller, more precise movements, normally using the hands and fingers. Fine motor skills are different than gross motor skills which require less precision to perform. This is the child's ability to use small muscles, specifically their hands and fingers, to pick up small objects, hold a spoon, turn pages in a book, or use a crayon to draw.

In the book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and The Brain by Dr. John J. Ratey, MD (2008), Ratey discuses how exercise can help treat many mood disorders and how it can help strengthen our brains. This book is divided into ten chapters all with five to ten subsections in them. The chapters include: Welcome to the revolution: A Case Study on Exercise and the brain, Learning, Stress, Anxiety, Depression, Attention Deficit, Addiction, Hormonal Changers, Aging, and the Regimen.

As children’s bodies become more streamlined and less top-heavy, their center of gravity shifts downwards toward the trunk. As a result, balance improves greatly, paving the way for new motor skills involving large muscles of the body. (Berk, 1999) During the preschool years until approximately age seven, fundamental motor skills develop including the locomotor skills needed to run, jump, hop, and skip. Also the object control skills such as throwing, catching, and kicking are developing. By the age of six or seven, children begin to integrate two or more of these skills. Though all children will not develop these skills at the same age, they will follow the same sequence.

Motor skills involve movement of muscle in the body (John, 2009). These are larger movements such as crawling, running, and jumping (John, 2009). Most of the gross motor development occurs during childhood (John, 2009). Gross motor skills have two principals that determent how a child will regularly develop (Center of diseases Control and Prevention, 2016). Head to toe development this means the upper parts of the body will develop before the lower parts of the body (John, 2009). Children develop these skills throughout play (John, 2009). A tree year old Toddler can be very active therefore participating in activity that require movement, coordination, and balance can be beneficial to help a toddler to develop their motor skills (Jan, Beth & Melissa, 2012). A 3 year old child can throw a ball but catching it is more difficult. They start walking with good posture similar to an adult; they can also walk backwards (Jan, Beth & Melissa, 2012). A 3 year old can run which required strength and balance, during running they should be able to rotate their trunk and swing their arms (John, 2009). By the age of 3 a child walks up and down stairs alternating their feet without support which is possible because their balance has increase (John, 2009). A 3 year old child also learns to jump from a step and learn to jump forward (Center of diseases Control and Prevention, 2016). They start hopping at the age of 3 ½ and also can stand on one foot (Center of diseases Control and Prevention, 2016). Skipping requires sequencing and rhythm which makes it more difficult this include step and hop patterns.

These skills need to be constantly used and refined in development so that they’re maturing at a steady rate. The development of these skills is of upmost importance because these are the muscles a child will use all day every day, when walking around the house or when playing with friends at school. These muscles will be continually engaged and having a good solid foundation of these working muscles will improve the early stages of a child’s life. The development of gross motor skills will generally speaking grow from inside to outside as well as head to toe, which is consistent of an infant’s same develop in the mother’s womb. As a child is progressing through the first two years of life, many changes will occur. The child will first learn to balance the body and move towards controlling the muscles of the body, then on to crawling and supporting itself, and by the end of that second year of life the child will have mostly refined skills that allow for play and overall being more mobile in moving around and navigating through day to day movements. Along with this increased mobility, a child will be able to get different places like on furniture, or up stairs but getting back down will be the hard part. As well as, the infant’s muscles’ may be progressing but the ability to stop and switch direction in movements is however not fully developed at this point.

Influence of the absorbent mind and the sensitive period on child 's development of movement:

When a child decides they want to try hopping on one leg for the first time, many areas of the brain become involved, such as the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, motor cortex strip, cerebellum, corpus callosum, and the spinal cord. All of these parts must communicate with each other and the parts of the body being used so that the task may be completed correctly. Initially, the prefrontal cortex is responsible for many things, including judgment and creativity. This would be responsible for initiating the thought that the child wants to hop in one foot, and would also judge where and when to hop. Since it is the child’s first time hopping on one foot, perhaps the prefrontal cortex would say that it would be safer to hop on grass rather than

The cerebellum plays a big part in allowing us to learn and retain motor functions (e.g. learning to climb stairs). The cerebellum plays a large role in adapting motor functions, and fine-tuning them to make them more accurate. This is usually done by the simple process of trial and error.

The cognitive development stage of attaining expertise is the first stage in which the individual develops what is call declarative encoding of the skill in which “a set of facts relevant to the skill is commit to memory” (Anderson, 2010). The learner will rehearse the facts as they perform the skills, for example, a child is learning to ride a bike he or she will rehearse the steps as the skill is perform. So the child will remember where the pedal is, learn how to hold to the handle, learn to balance, and learn to pedal and these steps become the set of problem-solving to ride the bike. Basically the child or learner is trying to figure out what needs to be done and the actions here are usually controlled in a conscious way. Learners also experiment with strategies in order to figure out the ones that work and the ones that does not. This knowledge that is acquired is in the declarative stage because the child’s performance cannot be called skilled. The child recalls facts about the skill of riding as he or she tries to ride the bike and pay attention in a step-by-step execution of the skill