Bilateral integration

Photo


There is a reason we provide and encourage two instruments, one for each hand. It relates to your child’s fine motor development. We are encouraging bilateral integraton which allows your child’s eyes to track a ball or the words on a page. Bilateral functioning helps keep balance while sitting, standing, and moving. It allows eyes and hands to work together to complete a variety of tasks.

To achieve bilateral integration, a child must first engage in bilateral play which requires holding two similar items, one in each hand. Holding one item would alter his interaction with the instrument and not encourage bilateral exploration, but rather focus on unilateral play.

As fine motor development progresses, a child will move his or her arms simultaneously (like patting knees or drumming hands together). Then he will move both hands symmetrically (think of clapping hands or tapping bells together.) After that is well established, he will begin to alternate like movements (one and then the other in a repeating pattern). The ultimate goal of this integration is to be able to use both sides of the body in non-symmetrical movement cooperatively. Examples of this are holding paper and cutting with scissors or holding strings down with one hand and strumming the strings of an instrument with another.