THE THIRD THROUGH SEVENTH YEARS
During these five years, the child becomes a mature sensory-motor being who can talk and relate to many different people. Higher intellectual functions will develop after age seven, and they will develop better if the sensory-motor functions are well developed. The third through seventh years are a critical period for sensory integration. Nature intended this to be the time when the g4ain is most receptive to sensations and most able to organize them. The child’s inner drive makes him very active and he learns to do many, many things with his body. His adaptive responses are more and more complex, and each adaptive response expands the child’s capacity for sensory integration.
Watch a child run, jump, hop, skip, wrestle, climb, and swing. He does these things because they are fun; and they are fun because they further sensory integration. Notice the improvements in balance, eye-hand coordination, and planning of a sequence of movements. Notice how the child tries things that are dangerous so that he can learn the limits of his sensory-motor ability. Notice how he pits himself against gravity and comes to terms with that powerful and unforgiving force. Playgrounds are popular with children because swings, slides, merry-go-rounds, monkey bars, see-saws, tunnels, and sandboxes fulfill the needs of the developing nervous system.
Using tools. Between the ages of three and seven, a child learns to use simple tools such as knives, forks, shovels, pails, needle and thread, scissors, crayons, pencil and paper, shoelaces, zippers, buttons, and all the other devices that make up a home. Each task requires all the sensory information that has been stored in the brain during earlier activities. Adults take it for granted, but sensations from the body are absolutely necessary to tell the brain how to put on a pair of pants, butter a piece of bread, or dig a hole in the ground.
Toward the end of this period we see, especially in girls, a final “polishing” of motor skills through complex games such as hopscotch, pease porridge hot, hula-hooping, jump rope and cat’s cradle. Boys often work more on feats of strength and sports.
By the time the child is eight years old, his touch system is almost as mature as it will ever be. He can almost always tell with great accuracy where he is being touched. His sense of gravity and movement is also almost fully mature. He can balance himself on one foot and walk a narrow surface. Most of the sensations from his muscles and joints should be well-integrated, and his ability to plan a sequence of actions is good, although it will improve in the next few years. He understands and speaks language well enough to communicate his needs and interests.
Jean Piaget, the famous observer of children, found that they do not begin abstract thinking and reasoning until they are seven or eight years old. He suggested that the human brain is not designed to process abstractions until it has a “concrete” knowledge of the body, the world, and its physical forces. Seven or eight years of moving and play are required to give the child a sensory-motor intelligence that can serve as the foundation for intellectual, social, and personal development.
But sometimes this development does not occur the way nature intended. We do know what the child is like when his brain has difficulty integrating sensations. We cannot take the place of nature and make everything all right, but we can do some things to help the child organize himself a little better. The ability to help a child organize his brain comes from watching children follow their own inner drive toward sensory integration. The more we watch the children, the more we will be able to help them.