To participate in motor skills it is necessary to have the foundation skills of stability, balance, motor planning, coordination, sequencing and crossing the midline a well as body awareness and security with movement.

Trunk Stability: poor trunk stability is usually due to low muscle tone in the trunk and neck, resulting in poor desk posture, wiggly behavior when seated, and poor endurance.  The flexor muscles allow for flexion of the stomach and shoulders in toward the body and the extensors allow for straighter posture with the head held up, shoulders back and trunk straight.  There must be a good balance between theses muscles to provide trunk stability.  The extensor muscles tend to be much weaker, preventing the child from adequately sitting well and for any length of time.  To improve trunk stability it is necessary to improve the extensor tone in the trunk and develop good stability between the flexors and extensors.

Shoulder Stability: It is important to have good trunk stability in order for shoulder stability to adequately develop.  Shoulder stability is necessary for the development of hand stability which contributes to grasp for writing and fine motor projects. Activities which provide joint compression and traction at the shoulder will assist with development of stability.

Balance: Balance results from adequate processing of movement and an inner sense of stability.  To improve balance it is necessary to improve the underlying issues of vestibular processing.   Activities rich in movement and joint compression/traction will be important in the development of balance.

Motor Planning:  Motor planning, or praxis, is the ability to perform a new or skilled motor task, and is dependent upon adequate body awareness, tactile feedback, ideation, initiation, timing, sequencing, feedback and feedforward.  It is how quickly we learn a motor skill and the ability to generalize it to other situations.  A weakness with motor planning impacts the ability to think of what to do and a child may need to copy or imitate someone.  A deficit will cause a child to have difficulty remembering what to do and how to do it, in that they may be able to tie their shoes one day, but not even know where to begin the next day.   Motor planning involves sequencing motor actions together such as necessary with dancing and playing the piano.  And a child needs to be able to adequately learn from feedback of information to their body how to then feedforward and produce the action better the next time they try it.  A child with motor planning difficulties may often act out or attempt to avoid motor tasks to protect themselves from a sense of failure. 

To improve motor planning it is necessary to address the underlying processing of body awareness, touch perception and discrimination and organization.  It will be important to break the steps of a task to manageable segments, and allow them to master each comfortably and then chain them together.  Some children may learn better from a visual demonstration where other may do better with auditory directions, and it will be important to determine which method is more successful for each child.

Bilateral Coordination: This involves using the two sides of the body together in a coordinated manner, use of legs together and of arms and hands together, as well as arms and legs together.  Initially children use the hand which is closer to the object or task they want, and eventually develop improved coordination and skill with both hands together.  Bilateral coordination allows us to use one hand to stabilize while the other hand works, play the piano, use tools, and participate in sports.

Crossing the Midline:  As the child matures, develops a dominance and efficient processing of the two sides of the body the ability emerges to cross the midline of the body. 

Sequencing: Sequencing is the ability to organize auditory, visual and motor information in a meaningful way.  It is necessary for following directions, both auditory and visual, and for imitating a series of actions. It is necessary to remember a sequence of directions to complete projects, get to a new location, remember phone numbers, etc. Copying and imitating the correct sequence of actions is necessary for tasks such as washing and drying hands, tying shoes, completing models, writing, sports, and playing a musical instrument.  To learn sequences of motions it may be necessary to break it down to individual steps, and learning each step well before moving on to the next (chaining).

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