Coordinating my body for play

In order for us to be able to coordinate our bodies to carry out activities, we need to have good core stability and the ability to have an idea of how we want to move, to plan how we are going to achieve that movement and then carry out the movement.

Core stability is the ability to control the movement and position of the central ‘core’ of the body which is responsible for posture and limb movement. This helps to maintain a good posture and gives a stable base to allow the arms, legs and head to move in a coordinated manner. It involves the muscles in the trunk, shoulders and hips.

Coordinating our bodies to carry out activities also involves the processing of essential information from all our sensory systems as well as integrating body awareness and perception of movement.

See the Using my senses section.

Difficulties you may see include:

• often tripping, falling or bumping into things
• poor quality writing and scissor skills
• carrying out every day, self-care tasks such as dressing and using cutlery
• learning new skills or carrying out an already mastered skill in a slightly different way, needing more practice than peers to learn these skills
• copying motor movements