(340)Ungainly movements/ Learning difficulties 16

The other evening I was attending a Christmas event in a home. There were many children, ranging from a few months, toddler, school-age children to teenagers. Since I was tired from the preparation and the actual cooking of my family's contributions,  I just took it easy. I sat and relaxed. After eating and helping to remove a few serving dishes to the kitchen., I listened to conversations around me with half my attention and reverted to my hobby of watching children.

I noticed a three year old girl who was constantly running and in motion. First her mum ran after her. Then after the brother woke up, the maid took over. Trying to be friendly, I chatted to the mum while she fed the younger brother. Somehow she talked about the contrast of the activity levels of her two children. Then she mentioned how the younger boy could not crawl properly yet but has started to stand and toddle around the sofa holding on for dear life.

Since ninety per cent of my students who had reading problems never could crawl properly at that age but went on to walk rapidly, I tried to explain that in encouraging the child to practice crawling daily would reduce the future problems of reading difficulties. She obviously could not conceive what I was driving at, probably never met anyone who needed special tutors to learn to read English. Without being rude nor insistent, I tried to share what I know.


After I returned home Elizabeth commented on how the little girl was running away from the maid, in attempting to miss Sandy, her swinging arm hit Elizabeth's thigh. You see, Sandy and Elizabeth was deep in conversation with chairs all around them, they were effectively blocking the exit. The little girl lost her balance and fell headlong flat on all four, did not cry but immediately got up without any assistance to run on out the gate.

Now, that was something that would have happened to Elizabeth right up to the age of three plus. Remember Cassandra in my last learning disability post, she was like that right up to age eight. Many a times she would hit her toes against an offending chair leg while coming to the dinner table to have a meal in my house. Of course a girl at seven would have slowed down enough not to fall. But I have rubbed ointment on many a bruises on her limbs and bandaged her bleeding toes. After bringing up Elizabeth full-time and Cassandra part-time (for a few years), I become quite accomplished in first aid through practice.

From what little I know, the part of the brain that control spatial perception (height, width, depth and distance) and co-ordination in crawling is the same part that is involved in learning spelling and grammar and vocabulary in phonetic based languages like English. Mothers in economically fast emerging countries would do their children a favour in not hiring maids who would carry a baby or toddler all their waking hours to prevent them from whining or crying.