Hand-eye coordination is a special ability of a person, with the help of which he manages to simultaneously use his hands and eyes when performing certain actions. It is also known as eye-hand coordination or visomotor coordination. With its help, we are able to use the data obtained through the eyes to coordinate the movement of the hands.
Concept
Hand-eye coordination is a complex cognitive ability that is important for the normal development of the child, his full schooling. After all, we use our eyes to focus our attention, helping our brain to determine where the body is in space. Hands are used to perform a particular task with the help of this visual information, and it is important to do this in a coordinated and simultaneous manner.
Worth itIt should be noted that hand-eye coordination is important not only for a child, but also for an adult. With its help, you are able to carry out coordinated actions of the eyes and hands. In everyday life, hand-eye coordination is used by us almost constantly, so it is very important to develop it, and, if possible, train it. We always use visual information to correct our behavior and our movements. This cognitive ability is very important for our lives.
Examples
To understand this ability, which many may take for granted, here are a few examples. At the moment when we write something on paper, we use hand-eye coordination. The fact is that when you write, your vision gives you the necessary information about the quality of the writing and the position of the hand. On its basis, all kinds of motor programs are created to correct problems that may arise as a result of feedback. The result is a sequence of precise and fast motor acts that require training and certain abilities.
Something similar happens while typing on a computer. The movements used in typing letters can be very different, but they equally use visual information. This is necessary to correct errors, the direction of movement of the hand.
While driving a car, we use this ability all the time. With its help, hand movements are coordinated in accordance with visualinformation that currently surrounds us.
Another example would be related to sports. Depending on the sport, visual-foot or visual-manual coordination dominates. In the first case, we do athletics or football, and in the second, tennis or basketball. At the same time, in almost every type of sports competition, the utmost coordination of our vision is required with the participation of the maximum number of muscle groups. So each of these cases can be attributed to hand-eye coordination.
Even trying to get into the lock with a key, we simply cannot do without this ability. The same thing happens when a child plays with a building toy and an adult tries to insert a plastic card into an ATM.
Formation
The formation of visual-motor coordination becomes important already in the senior preschool age. It must be developed and improved so that the child does not have problems while studying, this is of decisive importance for the full development of the baby when he is just preparing to go to school.
It's no secret that one of the main tasks of the parents of a preschooler is to prepare him for entering a secondary school. The development of fine motor skills, precise movements is a mandatory ability that must be formed in a child by this time. If a first grader has poor motor development, this will be a serious problem for him at school.
Practice shows that at six or seven years old,when children enter school, many are left with extremely low levels of hand-eye coordination. Because of this, they have poorly developed graphic-motor skills and fine motor skills. This is clearly manifested when the baby is not able to draw a letter, draw a straight line, carefully stick the application, cut out of paper along the contour.
Poor motor skills of the fingers leads to poor results in a variety of tasks. For example, when you need to draw something according to a model or circle a figure. In this case, the child does not succeed, his efficiency immediately drops, he gets tired almost immediately. When a baby is not prepared for writing due to insufficiently developed fine motor skills, he may develop a negative attitude towards the entire educational process. This will lead to the fact that he will constantly experience anxiety at school, will not want to study.
But this is extremely important, because in the process of learning the student will constantly have to do two actions at the same time. For example, something to copy or write off from the board. Joint actions of hands and eyes are very important, it is necessary that the fingers "hear" the information that the eyes are trying to convey to them. The fact that visual-motor coordination in a preschooler is not sufficiently developed is evidenced by the fact that it is easier for a child to draw from memory than to copy from nature. In this case, attention seems to be bifurcated, it becomes difficult for him to coordinate the actions of his hands and eyes. When motor and visual coordination is not formed, the quality and speed of tasks performance suffers.
Development
Therefore, the development of visual-motor coordination in preschoolers and primary school children is so important. This is an important element, which is considered one of the fundamental in determining how ready a child is for entering school. At the same time, it is worth remembering that kids constantly lose interest in monotonous activities that are regularly repeated. Therefore, to maintain their interest, you should constantly develop and look for new exercises and tasks.
The objectives of the development of hand-eye coordination are the formation of a child's way of perceiving moving objects, the development of a child's ability to keep a visual stimulus in the field of view when performing a visual task, the skill of following with the eyes the actions performed by the hands.
Also, with the help of this ability, the ability to confidently hold a pencil in hand is formed. The skill is being developed to draw straight lines between points, to draw oblique and curved lines from a given beginning to an end, to choose the most rational way when performing graphic tasks.
Examples of tasks
There are a large number of various exercises for the development of hand-eye coordination. Examples of some of them are given in this article. The educational game is called "Working with mazes".
She needs a labyrinth. To begin with, invite the baby to just carefully consider it. After that, the teacher offers to take the fairy-tale hero to hishouse through the maze, rolling it with a stick. Moreover, on one side of the labyrinth - figures of different colors, and on the other - empty squares that must be filled in, correlating each figure with the corresponding "window". Having followed the whole path, you should put the desired geometric figure in an empty square.
Another exercise for the development of hand-eye coordination in children is called "Chopsticks". There are two versions of this game. In the first, the child has tracks with an obstacle at the end, as well as a rope, one end of which is tied to a car, and the other to a stick. The kid should wind the rope around the stick, while actively working with his fingers, so that the machine starts to move off. It is important to go around all the obstacles in your path, and then go back. The machine should be carefully watched with your eyes.
In the second version of this exercise, one end of the string is tied to a stick, and the other to some object. The rope must be wound on a stick, working with a brush. Due to this, the object will rise up. You need to watch him carefully with your eyes.
Magic strings
The hand-eye coordination exercise "Magic Strings" also has two options. In the first case, a rope with Velcro, silhouette images and carpet are used. The silhouette is attached to the carpet, and the child circles it with a string along the outer contour, carefully tracing all movements with his eyes.
An alternative version of this hand-eye coordination game involves the use of silhouetteimages of an object made of velvet paper, a sheet of velvet paper itself, as well as threads and a stencil. In this case, the child will have to lay out the thread along the outline of the silhouette.
Finally, for the development of hand-eye coordination, the "Magic Glass" exercise is well suited. In addition to the glass itself, you will need a sheet of paper with some kind of image and a pencil. The child will carefully circle the objects, watching them through the "magic" glass.
Possible pathologies
It is important to check the level of development of this ability in the baby as early as possible, as parents may encounter various disorders of hand-eye coordination, which can lead to serious pathologies.
It is important to understand that this type of coordination can lead to failures even if the eyes are intact and the child has good vision.
Moreover, any disturbance of the motor or visual systems significantly impairs eye-hand coordination. Pathologies of the musculature and vision cause problems with this cognitive ability. First of all, these include amblyopia, strabismus, postural imbalance, muscle hypotension, and cross-lateralization. In addition, brain injuries can affect certain areas that are responsible for perception and motor skills, causing impaired visual motor coordination.
These problems negatively affect a wide variety of activities. This is expressed in learning difficulties, violationsdevelopment, at school or university, the student makes many mistakes in the notes, he has scattered attention. Already an adult may experience problems in professional areas, for example, experience difficulties in collecting parts, typing on a computer, its efficiency is noticeably reduced, which affects production performance. Problems are possible even in ordinary everyday life. From sewing and driving to something as simple as bringing a spoon to your mouth.
Coordination score
There are several ways to evaluate this type of coordination. It is better to measure this cognitive ability as early as possible so that there is time to correct everything.
There are various tasks for this, which are used in various fields.
- At school, to determine why the child has difficulty completing tasks, why he has poor academic performance.
- In medicine, to determine if a patient will be able to eat unaided after complex brain surgery or drive a car.
- In various professional areas, you can evaluate the most effective employees. This is especially often used in jobs where visomotor coordination is most important.
Tests
Tests that assess this cognitive ability are aimed at establishing a connection between the visual accompaniment of an object and hands, how reliable the user's neuromuscular abilities are.
Thus, during the synchronization test, a ball in motion appears on the computer screen. The goal is to coordinate the pointer with the movement of the ball as closely as possible.
When testing for multitasking, you need to watch the movement of the white ball and follow the words that constantly appear on the screen. When the word on the screen corresponds to the color in which it is written, it is necessary to signal, following both stimuli simultaneously. In this test, it is extremely important to prepare for possible changes, while simultaneously managing vision and control abilities.
During the speed test, a blue rectangle appears on the screen. You should press it as quickly as possible, while holding close to the center of the screen. The more often you can do this, the higher the result will be.
How to improve cognitive ability?
Hand-eye coordination is trainable, just like other human cognitive abilities. In particular, specialists have developed a series of exercises designed to restore this and other cognitive functions.
During their implementation, neural connections and the brain strengthen their functions. If you train regularly, this will help strengthen the brain structures involved in this ability. If you need to coordinate every action with the help of hands and eyes, neural connections will begin to work faster and more efficiently.
