You’ve probably observed a child reaching across their body to grab a toy or a pencil, but have you ever stopped to ponder the importance of that simple action?
The act of reaching across your body with your arms or legs is known as crossing the midline, a key developmental skill that’s crucial for activities like reading, writing, and even tying shoes. But what happens when a child struggles with crossing the midline? What impact could it have on their learning and overall development? Let’s explore this further, and discuss why it’s so critical to early childhood development.
What is Crossing the Body’s Midline?
Crossing the body’s midline is a fundamental skill that involves the ability to reach across the center of your body with your arms and legs, enabling you to perform tasks on the opposite side of your body. This imaginary line that bisects your body into left and right plays a crucial part in body coordination and motor skills development.
Imagine drawing a horizontal line across a page without having to switch hands midway, or sitting cross-legged on the floor. These seemingly simple actions require the crossing of your body’s midline. This ability isn’t just physical; it’s deeply intertwined with brain development and cognitive function.
When you’re crossing the midline, you’re basically promoting communication between both hemispheres of your brain. This bilateral coordination can be a significant indicator of your brain’s readiness for learning more complex skills. In fact, occupational therapy and physical therapy often utilizes exercises that involve crossing the midline to help patients recover or improve their motor abilities.
The Importance of Crossing the Midline
Being able to cross your body’s midline is vital for motor coordination, allowing you to perform tasks like putting on your shoes or hitting a ball with a bat. More importantly, it’s the foundation for developing fine motor skills. When you consistently use your dominant hand across your body’s midline, that hand gets the practice it needs to improve these skills.
Avoiding crossing the midline can lead to an equally practiced, yet less skilled pair of hands. This can delay the establishment of true hand dominance, making tasks like writing more difficult when a child starts school. It’s much more challenging to learn to write with two less skilled hands than with one more dominant, skilled hand.
Crossing the midline is also critical for visual tracking, enabling you to follow a moving object from one side to the other. It’s especially important for reading development, as it allows you to track text from left to right. Difficulty in crossing the midline can lead to a delay in learning to read.
For a pediatric occupational therapist, it is important that a child can cross the body’s midline as it can indicate proper development and fine motor skills. It can be hard to believe that such a simple task can be so indicative of other developmental challenges, but it truly does provide a baseline understanding of the coordination and brain-to-body connection of a child.
How to Tell if Your Child has Problems with Crossing Their Body’s Midline
Identifying problems with your child crossing their body’s mid-line can be as simple as observing their behavior during certain activities. Notice if they frequently switch hands during tasks or if they’ve difficulty tracking objects from one side of their body to the other. These could be signs of issues with midline crossing, which could also impact their gross motor skills and pencil skills.
Here are some actions and behaviors you should keep an eye on to determine if your child has difficulties crossing the midline:
- They use their left hand for tasks on the left side of the their body, and their right hand only for tasks on the right side of their body.
- They have not developed a dominant foot when kicking a ball, so they kick with both feet
- They have difficulty tracking objects from one side of the body to the other
- They rotate their body instead of reaching across (crossing midline)
If you notice some of these actions occurring frequently, your child may have some difficulty crossing the midline and they may need further assistance to develop that skill.
Other Problems That Occur with Difficulties Crossing the Midline
If your child is struggling with crossing the body’s midline, you might notice several other challenges cropping up, such as difficulties with pencil-based activities or heightened frustration during fine motor tasks. This frustration often arises from less refined hand skills, leading your child to avoid such activities.
Simultaneously, self-care tasks, vital for their independence, may become more difficult. Age-influenced, these tasks require body coordination which your child may lack, resulting in less refined physical skills compared to their peers.
Reading can also be affected, as crossing the midline plays a role in tracking text. When learning to read, it is common for young children to use their fingers or other objects to track text on a page. If your child has difficulties with crossing midline, they may have a hard time tracking text across a page.
How to Improve the Ability of Crossing the Body’s Midline
Improving the ability to cross the body’s midline can be achieved through targeted activities and exercises. Focus on enhancing bilateral integration skills, which involve using both sides of your body simultaneously.
There are many activities you can do with your child to help them develop these skills. Many of them are basic tasks that you can practice every day with your child. Activities such as dressing, throwing a ball, and more can help improve bilateral coordination. Let’s talk about some of these activities in more detail.
What Activities can Help Improve Crossing the Body’s Midline?
There are many fun and practical activities you can practice with your child, for example, crafting activities like threading beads, cutting and pasting, or folding paper promote cross body movements. Playing games such as ‘Twister’ or ‘Simon Says’ can encourage this skill as well. Marching games and activities with blocks or percussion instruments can also be beneficial.
Even simple actions like placing stickers on one arm and encouraging a child to remove them with the opposite hand can contribute to child development in this area. These exercises can help improve the ability to cross the body’s midline effectively.
Don’t overthink the activity. Focus on tasks that require your child to use different parts of their body. If they are old enough for sports, practice those as well. Sports like soccer, baseball, basketball, and tennis require bilateral coordination and can really help your child understand the connection between the left and right side of their bodies.
Should I Seek Therapy for my Child if I Notice Difficulties Crossing the Body’s Midline?
Recognizing and seeking therapeutic intervention for difficulties in crossing the body’s midline can greatly improve a child’s development in several essential areas. One of the key therapy benefits is helping your child develop hand dominance, which is crucial for performing daily self-care tasks, such as dressing, and for academic readiness.
When your child struggles with crossing the body’s midline, they may have difficulties preparing for an academic environment. Many pencil skill and fine motor tasks required in school necessitate effective crossing of the body’s midline. Hence, therapy can be instrumental in ensuring your child is academically prepared.
Therapy can also significantly improve your child’s gross motor skills. Activities like kicking, hitting balls, and running all require the ability to cross the midline. If your child is having trouble with these, therapy can provide the necessary assistance.
Occupational therapy is a great option to help your child improve their bilateral coordination skills. If your child struggles with crossing the midline of their body and you’re located in Virginia, reach out to us for a free initial consultation to see if we are a good fit to help your child.
