Bilateral coordination activities are essential for coordinated and fluid movements that require both sides of the body. Also called bilateral integration, the movements of both hands together in activities requires processing and integration of both hemispheres of the brain to enable both hands working together at the same time, or bilateral movements. Without bilateral coordination, a child might appear to be clumsy or drop items, use primarily one hand in activities, or switch hands during tasks that require a dominant hand and a helper hand. Development of bilateral coordination skills is powerful in functional skills like self-feeding, handwriting, self-dressing, grooming, and more.
Bilateral Coordination Activities
First, let’s talk a little more about bilateral coordination. What is bilateral coordination, and how do bilateral movements impact learning, functional tasks, and play in child development?
Activities that support development of bilateral coordination skills integrate several areas of development:
- Visual motor
- Core strength and stability
- Attention and focus
- Sensory processing: vestibular, proprioceptive, and visual sensory systems
- Balance and coordination
- Body awareness
- Development of a dominant side of the body
Each of the areas listed above are both needed for participation in tasks requiring bilateral skills and developed, or strengthened through participation. Play is a powerful tool to support these areas.
Check out these bilateral coordination toys to help kids build skills through play and games.
Why is bilateral coordination important?
Bilateral coordination is important for a variety of skills.
When bilateral coordination or bilateral integration is intact and progressing appropriately through development, it is an indicator that both sides of the brain are communicating effectively and sharing information during functional tasks.
Younger toddlers and babies can be observed using both hands in play as they pick up objects in their line of sight. However, they typically will pick up items with the hand that is closest to the object or toy.
As toddlers progress in development, they will begin to establish a dominant hand and crossing midline. Read more about this in our resource on cross crawl exercises.
This ability to utilize a dominant hand and a non-dominant hand in activities indicates a maturation of the brain and lateralization in functional tasks, which is very important for motor planning, directionality, and visual motor skills.
When a child is challenged in development of bilateral coordination skills, there can be resulting difficulties.
In fact, impaired bilateral coordination skills can lead to difficulty in the classroom. Science tells us that problems with bilateral coordination can have an impact on academic performance, with slowness and disinterest in schoolwork.
In the school setting there are many areas that can be a challenge as a result of bilateral coordination struggles:
- performance in school tasks that require coordination
- using scissors
- writing- including holding the paper and erasing
- tracing
- using tools such as rulers
- managing clothing- buttons, zippers, snaps
- managing lunch containers
- putting on and taking off a backpack
- turning pages in books
- managing and organization skills in folders and backpacks
Development of bilateral coordination in self-feeding depends greatly on the child’s developmental level. The baby who is learning to place dry cereal in their mouth will be vastly different level than the child who is scooping soup or cutting a piece of chicken. Development of fine motor skills and visual motor skills have an impact on coordination of the hands in self-feeding.
Bilateral coordination supports:
- Hand dominance development
- Fine motor precision
- Postural control
- Motor planning
- Self-care independence
- Classroom participation
- Sports performance
- Instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs)
Without strong bilateral coordination, children may struggle with dressing, handwriting, cutting, opening containers, carrying materials, and participating in sports.
We work on bilateral coordination skills in occupational therapy sessions to support the visual motor skills needed to complete purposeful tasks AND in order to achieve independence in these tasks. This short we have on our YouTube channel explains more about the “why” behind bilateral coordination activities like holding a paper on a vertical surface like a wall while coloring: