Once an aeroplane has taken off, and is going along a set
course, the pilot has the option to put the plane on
automatic pilot. This means that with help from the onboard
computer, the plane basically flies itself. There are all
sorts of sensors, which inform the pilot of all the
conditions of the plane, and warning lights that will alert
the pilot to any danger. The personnel constantly monitor the
situation. Putting the plane on automatic is much less
stressful for the captain, and allows him to think of other
matters that come up. Only the complicated manoeuvres like
landing and taking off, need the full concentration of the
pilot and his team.
Anyone who's had driving lessons (in a geared car) will
remember well the overwhelming feeling of trying to think of
too many things at one time. First the clutch down, then
change gear (you have to remember where the next gear is
without looking, up with the clutch, not too slowly, not too
fast. Don't forget to look in the mirror, signal (no not the
windscreen wipers!) and actually turn the steering wheel. And
that's before you even get onto the road! However anyone
who's been driving for a while, drives automatically. The
only thing the driver needs to think about is the traffic and
the direction. The actual driving occurs effortlessly, and
without thought, like the plane on automatic pilot. Of course
there is thought going on, but it's not conscious. It's as if
our hands and feet know exactly what to do.
This automatic pilot works all day. Do we think about
dressing? We choose the clothes, but do we have to think out
how to dress? The automatic pilot allows us to dress and
easily conduct a conversation at the same time.
In order for our automatic pilot to work, we also have to be
able to monitor what is happening all the time. We have to
know what all the bits of our body are doing all the time. It
might seem obvious that we know where our arms and legs are
and what they are doing. But actually, quite a complicated
process is occurring. Our brain is constantly receiving
information from sensors around the body that the brain
interprets all together to tell us our position. [Sometimes
there is contrary information coming in, like our balance
centers telling us we are moving, but our eyes telling us
that we are staying still. Hence motion sickness.]
All this occurs without conscious thought or awareness on our
part, but as soon as we want to do something, that
information helps the brain send the right messages to our
limbs. This system is the reason we move our legs in when
someone needs to get past (because we 'know' our legs are
sticking out), or why we don't try to walk through gaps that
are too small for us (because we 'know' how big our body
is).
When we first learn how to do something, like learning to
drive, then we have to plan each movement. So we say to
ourselves, "Now I have to put my hand here and do such and
such," and then we do it. This is called motor
planning. This means making a muscular movement that is
planned. However when we have learned how to do something,
the decision to do something is followed immediately by the
action. We are not aware of the decision and the action being
independent thoughts, though they must be. This is the
automatic pilot we have which makes so many activities
effortless.
Most people move quite quickly from the stage of learning a
skill, when they have to motor plan, to knowing a skill on
automatic pilot. Children require a great deal of effort and
motor planning to learn how to dress (sleeves, buttons, zips
etc), but eventually pass to a stage of doing these things
without conscious thought or effort. They are now on
automatic pilot.
The system that allows us to do things on automatic is a very
helpful one. It frees up our mind to think about the things
we want to do, without being overwhelmed by the doing of it.
Imagine having to concentrate on negel vasser, teeth
brushing, dressing, making and eating breakfast etc. Before
the day had started, you'd be ready to go back to bed! If you
always drove like a novice, you would never be able to think
about the road signs and directions when you drove; certainly
you couldn't hold a conversation, you'd be too busy
driving.
It seems that some children are born with weak motor planning
skills and they cannot move to automatic pilot easily. This
has two major consequences. One is that the child has
difficulty learning a lot of basic skills. So these children
find dressing themselves, eating with a knife and fork, teeth
brushing, etc to be very difficult tasks to learn, and they
don't get better at it as time goes on. Even when the skill
is finally learnt, and even if it is performed reasonably
well, conscious effort is still required. You can tell this
because if the child tries to talk or listen at the same
time, then the activity stops altogether, or takes more time,
or is done in a less competent way.
These children find multitasking activities (doing more than
one thing at a time) very difficult. If they can catch a
ball, then as soon as you talk to them they either stop
throwing the ball or miss catching it.
Take a game such as 'Simple Simon Says' (or the equivalent
'Dovid Omar'). A person stands and illustrates a
movement (like putting their hands on their head) and says
'Simple Simon says put your hands on your head', and the
other children have to copy him. Then the caller moves from
one movement to the next, trying to catch them out by calling
an action without saying 'Simple Simon Says', or doing
something different than what he is saying. Anyone 'caught'
doing that action when the 'Simple Simon Says' formula wasn't
said is out.
Children with motor planning problems take more time to work
out how to move their body to copy the caller, and will do it
later than the others. By the time they manage to copy one
action, the others are already up to the next. They are
always caught out easily because they have little
concentration left for listening out carefully for when the
instruction formula changes. Some children can be so poor at
this game that they cannot mimic the actions at all.
The second consequence of poor motor planning skills is that
a child has less awareness of where bits of his body are and
what they are doing. This makes him very clumsy. For example,
he would knock his hand into the table as he walks past, he
would trip over things because he does not
automatically lift his feet when it meets an
obstruction, and he would drop things he's carrying if he
gets too distracted. When you say 'excuse me' he doesn't see
what bit of him is in the way, and may look around at his
body to see if he can work it out.
Life for these children seems to be a constant first-time
driving lesson! And he's always stalling! His writing may be
beautiful if he concentrates, or it may be a disaster if he's
tired. However planning what to write may be
exceptionally challenging because he is required to think
about what he wants to write and think about the process of
writing at the same time.
It must be said that these children are often very
intelligent. But in the normal run of events, they will not
be seen as intelligent because they will struggle in school.
This is because almost all school activities involve learning
new skills (that's what we send them there for), and it is
expected that these skills, once learned, will form the basis
for the next skill. For these children, skills take longer to
learn, and that skill still has to be thought out long after
everyone else is on automatic pilot.
Socially, these children will be awkward. They are not as
spontaneous as other children and cannot easily plan what to
say. This is especially true in group discussions because by
the time the child has processed what is being said, and
thought out an appropriate response, and said it, the
conversation has moved on, and his comment will be poorly
received.These children lack the physical skills necessary
for social acceptance, like ball games or skipping.
Some children have motor planning difficulties in only a
specific area. For example, certain speech and language
difficulties may be due to a weakness in motor planning the
muscular movements of the mouth to produce particular sounds.
It may appear that he can't do those sounds, but that is not
the case. For example, when you ask the child to copy a
'blowing' action, he won't be able to do it, but if you ask
him to 'blow out a candle', he can do it. So the whole
muscular system is okay, but the child cannot make these
sounds at will. Likewise, his speech (the enunciation of the
sounds) may be okay, but his language (what he says) may be
the problem. This is, of course, only one cause of speech and
language difficulties.
Motor planning difficulties cover a wide range, from very
severe to very mild, but in either case it is important to
check your child's progress and identify this sort of problem
as early as possible. These 'floppy', 'clumsy' children can
often benefit a great deal from Occupational Therapy. These
children will need to be taught many things that other
children just 'pick up', and they need more time to perfect
these skills. Children are always challenging to raise, but
understanding what makes them 'tick' can make it a little
less traumatic, both for you, as parent, and for the child,
who is understood, and not blamed for being different.
