Children with poor hand-eye coordination are more likely to be poor at school

Why are clumsy kids worse at school??

Some children are simply better at school than their classmates. This does not necessarily have to do with the support of teachers and parents, but can have many reasons. Researchers have now found that when kids have difficulty catching a ball, they also have more problems with reading, writing and math examinations.

University of Leeds researchers found in their current research that clumsy children who have trouble picking up a ball are worse off in reading, writing and math examinations at school. The experts published the results of their study in the English-language journal "Psychological Science".

Study examined more than 300 subjects

If children lack so-called hand-eye coordination, schools may be able to provide additional support, say the doctors. More than 300 children between the ages of four and eleven participated in various tasks on the computer for the study. The medics examined the coordination and other skills through a test in which participating children interacted with moving objects. For example, tasks to measure hand-eye coordination included controlling, aiming, and tracking objects on a computer screen.

People with improved hand-eye coordination had higher scores

In one of the tasks, the children had to hit a moving object with a bat on the screen. From this task, the researchers say that it reflects a basic cognitive ability. The test can predict how the brain predicts the movement of objects through time and space. Participants with improved hand-eye coordination tended to have a higher academic degree, the authors of the study explain. Improved hand-eye coordination could lead to improved grades at school, the experts add.

What are the causes of the results?

The results of the current research show that hand-eye coordination and interactive timing are robust predictors of how well small children will fare at school, the researchers say. The current thinking among psychologists is that the neural circuits used to build a child's understanding of his external environment, and the way the children orientate themselves spatially and perceive their world, are also used to process numbers and more abstract thinking be used. Of course, the findings of the study raise the question of whether schools should identify those children who are clumsy or lack good coordination to provide them with additional support, say the authors of the study. (As)