Why midline crossing is important

For some kids, this develops automatically when they start to play with toys in infancy by banging toys together, climbing, reaching, etc. Some babies and children struggle with this task and never fully are able to cross their body with compensated somehow, like leaning or rotating with their trunk, switching hands to during an activity like writing or cutting with scissors. Or they continue to only use one arm on their same side of their body for the task.

You might be thinking, what does matter if they twist their trunk to grab a toy instead of reaching across their body? They got what they wanted right? While this may be true, the ability to cross midline has functional implications that could be limited. On the physical level, our bodies typically cross midline spontaneously when we develop a dominant hand preference.

When our body does not cross midline, both hands tend to work equally left upper extremity works on the left side of the body and the right upper extremity works on the right side of the body. Equal practice sounds good, but when this occurs it can be very difficult to establish hand dominance. Fine motor skills may be delayed or poor, negatively impacting the skills necessary for school i.

Without midline crossing, trunk rotation will not occur. Reading Noticing all of the details on a page when copying drawings or writing. Bilateral Integration Skills using both sides of the body at the same time. Craft: Threading beads, cutting and pasting, folding paper. Finger Puppets: Placing finger puppets on one hand and encouraging the child to remove the puppets with the opposite hand. Blocks and Percussion: Getting the child to bang blocks or percussion instruments together in their mid-line.

Streamers: Getting the child to make streamers or ribbon circles and patterns in front of their mid-line use two hands together or one in each hand.

Marching games using their arms and legs. Stickers: Placing stickers on one arm and encouraging the child to remove them with the opposite hand. Therapeutic intervention to help a child with crossing mid-line difficulties is important to: Help a child develop hand dominance. Help prepare a child for the transition into the academic environment where many pencil skill and fine motor tasks are expected which require effective crossing of the body mid-line.

Help a child to complete age appropriate self care tasks e. Help a child improve their gross motor skills such as kicking, hitting balls and running. Help improve the ability to visually track effectively across a page so that literacy skills develop easily e. Participating in sports that require good coordination e. Increased pressure and anxiety in a school aged child as it is expected that most self care skills are independent or requiring only minimal assistance.