Fine Motor Skills

Bilateral Coordination Lacing Activity and Functional Tasks

Colleen Beck OTR/L

Colleen Beck, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist and the owner and author of The OT Toolbox website. She manages all of The OT Toolbox social media accounts and runs the popular newsletter. Colleen created The OT Toolbox in 2011 and since then has written thousands of blog posts designed to support therapy providers, educators, parents, counselors, admin, and caregivers in promoting the healthy development of kids. Check out Colleen's blog posts below:

by Colleen Beck OTR/L
June 9, 2016

Bilateral coordination allows us to use both of our hands together in a coordinated manner. Coordination of our two hands enables a person to zipper up a jacket, hold a paper with one hand while writing and erasing with the other, and many (many) other functional skills throughout our day.

This simple plate lacing activity is a creative way to work on bilateral coordination in order to improve coordination in these areas. Find more lacing activities here.

This fine motor bilateral coordination activities covers a variety of underlying needs related to motor skills!

Using activities like this one to address fine motor skills helps with development of bilateral coordination in skills like self-feeding, handwriting, and more functional tasks.

Why is bilateral coordination important?

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. 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.

Symptoms of poor bilateral coordination skills can present in a variety of ways in the classroom, fine motor tasks, or functional tasks.

Bilateral Coordination Activity with Plate Lacing

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You’ll need just a few materials to create this activity:

Clear plastic plates

Hole punch

Pipe cleaners (We received ours from www.craftprojectideas.com)

Related Therapy Activities: Looking for some indoor bilateral coordination activities like the one shared here? Try our list of Winter Bilateral Coordination Activities.

Bilateral coordination activity with lacing a plastic plate to build midline crossing, coordination of the two sides of the body, and hand dominance for improved functional skill motor use.

Twist several pipe cleaners together to create a long piece. Using the hole punch, punch holes around the outside edge of the plate, every two inches. Start threading. It’s that easy.

Lace the pipe cleaner in any way your child likes, as there is no right way or wrong way while working on bilateral coordination. Simply holding the plate and threading the pipe cleaner in and out of the holes requires the hands to work together while holding the pipe cleaner with the dominant hand, and moving the plate over and back again as the pipe cleaner is threaded through the holes.

Why Work on Bilateral Coordination?

Think about all of the daily tasks that you perform on a daily basis. Your brain’s two sides needs to communicate easily in order for both sides of the body to be coordinated effectively. Hand dominance and crossing the midline are key parts of coordinated and fluent movement with the hands in functional tasks. Read more about hand dominance here.

This plate lacing activity allows the child to build and strengthen a clear hand dominance by requiring the non-dominant hand to hold and maneuver the plate as the dominant or stronger hand performs the fine motor work.

Typically, a child with bilateral coordination concerns will show difficulty with crossing midline, delayed hand dominance, or switching hands between activities or within the same activity. They will have trouble discerning left from right and knowing which hand they prefer to write or color with. They might also have impaired or delayed kinesthetic sense.