Background
Amira, a 9-year-old student in Year 5, has sensory processing difficulties that primarily affect her gross motor skills. Sensory processing challenges mean that her brain struggles to effectively interpret and respond to sensory input. This impacts her ability to balance, coordinate movements, and participate in physical activities.
In the classroom and on the playground, Amira’s difficulties present in several ways as seen in the graphic above. Amira is clearly struggling with physical activities such as handwriting, and playing physical games like tag and skipping.
Impact on Other Areas of Development
Although we can see that sensory processing difficulties are impacting on Amira’s gross motor skills, these difficulties may be impacting her in other areas such as:
- Emotional Development
- Amira is constantly feeling excluded, whether that be because she feels like she can’t join in on physical games on the playground or PE, or maybe because she is not writing at the same pace as her peers in lesson. This may lead to issues with her self-esteem and sense of belonging.
- Cognitive Development
- Amira does not have the solid building blocks of gross motor coordination which means that her movements are not fully automated. This may have a big impact on her ability to fully engage in learning as her brain is somewhat preoccupied.
- Amira is also struggling with her writing which is going to have a huge impact on most of her subjects.
- Social Development
- Other children may perceive Amira’s unwillingness to join in as hesitation or disinterest which may affect her friendships.
As we can see, underdeveloped gross motor skills can affect more than just a child’s ability to participate in P.E. It affects most areas of development and requires support and attention from adults.
Think about the case study. Does it make you reflect on a child in your own school? If so, you may wish to seek more information on gross motor skills and sensory processing difficulties. You can access our training on gross motor skills and the Cool Kids programme (delivered by children’s Occupational Therapist Roz Roscoe) here. It contains lots of information and plenty more case studies to work through. We also have other blog posts relating to gross motor skills and the Cool Kids programme. For free resources, including support for physical and sensory development, click here.
