Being able to reach across my body

We all have an imaginary midline running down the centre of our bodies. In order for us to effectively coordinate the two sides of our bodies together, we need to be able to reach across our body and cross that imaginary midline.

Each side of our brain is responsible for the opposite side of our body, so that the right side of our brain affects the left side of our body and the other way around. Both sides of our brain need to work together, as do both sides of our bodies, in order to do activities involving both sides of our body (bilateral coordination) and to develop co-ordination.

Learning to cross the midline of our body is therefore important in the development of bilateral co-ordination. When there is a lack of easy side-to-side movement, each hand tends to operate on their own side of the body. Children who avoid crossing the midline often turn their body to avoid crossing the midline and this interferes with the development of hand dominance and makes bilateral motor tasks very difficult.

A child who is not able to cross the midline may be having difficulties with:

• tying shoelaces
• coordinating a knife and fork
• reading and writing
• establishing hand dominance
• ball games
• drawing and cutting skills