My child goes to school: not only the backpack matters
The entry of a child into school age is associated with many challenges. A vision of a little student with a backpack begins to appear in the parent's head. Appropriate preparation or rearrangement of a child's room, full equipment with the necessary books, school supplies and aids, as well as planning additional educational activities, is on the minds of first-graders' parents even before the beginning of the school year.
Often, the first thought is to choose a desk or chair that is suitable for learning, lighting, and creating a study-friendly place. To the background are dilemmas such as the attitude of the child and the backpack.
Proper physical development of a child: let's not forget about the most important thing
From articles available in the press and on the Internet, we will learn how to best prepare a student's workplace at home. We will also find ready-made lists of things to pack into a backpack. So that it has the optimal weight, and yet contains all the necessary things. We will also find rankings of extracurricular activities that will develop the child on many levels.
Numerous publications also suggest what should be the proper physical development of a child at an early school age. So that the parent can spot any irregularities as soon as possible. Such issues include, for example, the development of the child and the backpack. However, is it enough to properly prepare a child for going to school? Does only this proverbial backpack matter? In the following text, we will mainly focus on dysfunctions and disorders that affect the correct body posture and proper physical development of the child.
Schoolboy with a backpack goes to school: how to prepare a child?
When a child enters school age, it is like an adult taking up a job. A new employee must complete many formalities, prove the necessary qualifications, and undergo medical examinations. In the case of a child, parents take care of the formalities. Qualifications is an assessment of school readiness, prepared by the child's previous educational institution.
What about research? Perhaps it is worthwhile to carry out preventive care of the child's health, so that by taking up education and changing the mode of his current functioning, a freshly baked student with a backpack, will enter into full psychophysical health, into this new period of his life. And possible deficits, defects or abnormalities in development were noticed as soon as possible and qualified for appropriate therapies.
Preventive examinations
Before going to school, children are fully tested over time the balance sheet of a six-year-old. It sometimes happens that the pediatrician asks parents for a certificate from other specialists (e.g. orthopedists, physiotherapists, ophthalmologists or ENT specialists) about the health of a small patient. Often times, such a "compulsion" leads parents with their child on first preventive examinations. Their results allow to assess the child's health and diagnose development problems or deficits. Parents, on the other hand, are helped to undertake early intervention and plan appropriate therapeutic actions, if they are necessary.
Detailed preventive examinations, in children of all ages, should be carried out every time the parent detects even the smallest irregularities or non-physiological changes in the child's development.
Of course, some of the problems with:
- body posture;
- by sight;
- or the child's hearing
it is revealed only during school education, but some of them can be identified earlier.
Expert advises
As a physiotherapist and a parent at the same time, I would like to draw your attention to some important, albeit not obvious, psychophysical problems of children in the early school period. Late diagnosed, often overlapping and consolidating in time, may disturb the proper development of a child, as well as interfere with the enjoyment of school learning and relationships with peers.
What is school maturity?
According to the definition of S. Szuman, School maturity is the achievement by a child of a level of physical, social and mental development that makes them vulnerable and susceptible to systematic education and upbringing in the first grade of primary school. It is also a moment of balance between the school's requirements and the child's developmental abilities.
Such an assessment concerns maturity:
- physical (physical, somatic and motor development);
- socio-emotional;
- mental (cognitive);
- for learning to read and write;
- for learning math.
The teacher who diagnoses school maturity may make some observations about physical maturity (height, weight, proper skeletal and muscular development, appropriate motor skills, properly functioning senses), but he does not play a major role in assessing this area.
If a parent receives information about abnormalities in the child's physical maturity or notices some deficits himself, for example a problem such as the child's inadequate posture and a backpack, he should go with the child for a comprehensive physiotherapeutic diagnosis as soon as possible.
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Head of the Department of Assessment and Development of Cooperation at the Institute of Mother and Child
Co should it worry the parent?
These are i.a. quick fatigue of the child while undertaking physical exertion or reluctance to undertake it, abnormal gait and run with the throwing of the lower legs, shuffling or adduction of the feet, stumbling, frequent changes of position when sitting down (fidgeting) and standing, inability to maintain one position of the body at a specific time, looking for support while standing, slouching, asymmetry of the positioning of various elements of the child's body (shoulders, pelvis, chest), aggravating the problems incorrect posture of the child and the backpack, negligent posture while standing, walking or sitting, previous problems with muscle tone.
Assessment of the child's body posture
During the diagnostic visit, the physiotherapist will conduct a detailed interview, covering the development of the child from the prenatal period and using appropriately selected scales and tests, will assess, among others:
- the child's body posture in all planes,
- muscle tension,
- proper mobility in joints and muscle length,
- locomotion,
- coordination and balance.
In terms of assessing the body posture, the physiotherapist will examine the static and dynamic posture of the child:
- alignment of the head, shoulders and shoulder blades
- torso asymmetry (positioning of the shoulders, shoulder blades, waist and pelvis angles)
- deepening or flattening of the physiological curves of the spine (cervical lordosis, thoracic kyphosis and lumbar lordosis)
- chest structure
- lateral curvatures of the spine
- positioning of the knee joints (valgus or varus)
- ankle positioning
- the degree of rotation of the torso using a scoliometer
In addition, he will assess the position of the feet (longitudinal and transverse flatfoot, valgus of the hindfoot, or other foot defects), determine the length of the lower limbs and analyze the phases of gait and pelvic mobility.
Fine and large motor skills in a child
The correct structure and function of the skeletal and muscular systems, spine, torso and limbs affects the level of motor skills of large and small children, the degree of postural stabilization or the ability to control the body in space. This directly translates into the child's functioning at school and the effectiveness of the course of schooling. It should be remembered that when controlling the child's development, we take care of his or her proper posture, and this translates into e.g. proper carrying of a backpack.
Gross motor skills are global body movements
It includes running, jumping, crawling, cycling, swimming, overcoming obstacles, team games and all kinds of equivalent games, where hand-eye coordination is crucial.
It has a huge impact on the development of fine motor skills.
Fine motor skills are finger and hand movements
It is much smaller in its scope than gross motor skills. Still, it requires much more concentration and focus.
Disturbances in motor or hand-eye coordination may be the reason for e.g. reduced graphomotor performance. The child cannot coordinate the work of the hand and eye, which in turn leads to incorrect drawing of letters and going beyond the ruling, excessive squeezing the pen or pressing it strongly against the paper while writing. It also results in incorrect positioning of individual elements of the child's body, and thus perpetuating incorrect postural habits.
Reduced muscle tone and hypermobility
Children with diagnosed hypermobility or reduced muscle tone have difficulty sitting in a bench - they twist, drill, often stand up, change their position, unconsciously interfering with their activities and receiving the label of naughty or hyperactive (ADHD). They cannot stabilize their posture for a specified period of time, and movement allows them to reduce the energy expenditure needed to maintain a stable position. Over time, these children go to the Diagnosis of Sensory Integration in order to diagnose their hyperactivity or problems with balance, and it turns out that the child has, among other things, reduced muscle tone in the so-called center (mainly the torso, shoulder girdle, head).
Disorders related to the distribution of postural tension, both those of a pathological nature and those that are within the limits of the broadly understood standard, are the cause of:
- incorrect loads in the child's movement system;
- the formation of functional and structural changes within the joints and muscles, e.g. curvature of the spine, chest asymmetry, hyperextension, valgus in the elbow and knee joints and related structures.
The child moves or sits not as it should, but as the condition of the muscles allows it.
Expert advises
From the perspective of my experience, it is impossible to grow out of abnormal muscle tone (increased / decreased). If, during infancy, the child had problems with the muscular system, it is certain that they will reappear at the next stage of the child's development. Therefore, an early diagnosis of abnormalities in the child's physical development is needed to take therapeutic measures as soon as possible in accordance with the individual recommendations of the physiotherapist. For some children it will be indications for intensive strengthening of muscle strength and stabilization of posture, others will need stretching of the contracted muscles and relaxation therapy, and some will work on correction of feet and gait.
Incorrect child's posture and other dysfunctions
The assessment of the child's body posture also provides us with a lot of information about the functioning of other senses or organs. An experienced physiotherapist, with a holistic approach to the examined child, will also pay attention to other elements in the child's behavior or posture, which may suggest deeply hidden dysfunctions.
Incorrect positioning of the head and cervical spine may indicate problems with eyesight and hearing, an open mouth to speech therapy problems, and defects in the feet and spine may correlate with a malocclusion. Of course, accurate diagnoses in these ranges should be made by appropriate specialists.
Child dysfunctions and schooling
Eyesight defects
If, when observing a child, we notice blinking of the eyes, frequent blinking, tilting the head, and in the history we have information about headaches and eye pains, rapid eye fatigue during visual exertion - this is a signal for in-depth ophthalmic and optometric diagnostics. A screening test will be performed at the ophthalmologist to detect vision defects, and the optometrist will diagnose any eye optics disorders, poor coordination of eye movement and rehabilitation of the visual system.
The imbalance of tension in the oculomotor muscles (responsible for moving the eyeball) can impair vision, which significantly affects posture and school performance. The head is often protracted or tilted which causes abnormal compensatory muscle responses at lower levels leading to body asymmetry. Tilting the head can lead to functional disorders of the spinewhich will change over time into structural (lateral curvatures, scoliosis). Convergence disorders (symmetrical, convergent movement of the eyes to the nose) lead to problems with seeing objects that are close to the person. They are very often revealed at an early stage of school education, and their symptoms include:
- requiring more time, rewriting information from the blackboard or screen into a notebook;
- writing sentences longer;
- problems with concentration;
- difficulties in understanding the text being read.
Hearing problems
The same should be done if we observe problems with hearing, understanding commands or general distraction during the examination (of course, this should be differentiated from the child's behavior in a new place). Setting the head in a twist or turning it frequently and listening to commands may lead to changes in the entire motor organ. In this case, a visit to the ENT specialist is essential.
However, sometimes, despite the correct structure of the ears and the functioning of the hearing system, the understanding of speech becomes impaired and the child has problems with efficient communication. Most often, difficulties with auditory processing are revealed when our new student arrives with a backpack at school, where the demands placed on the sense of hearing increase for long attention to what the teacher says, against the background of surrounding noises and other disturbances.
Often a child loses himself, "turns off", his thoughts are elsewhere, he seems absent, has problems with establishing and maintaining contact with peers. These behaviors contribute to the reduction of the child's general level of activity, and thus to the development of his incorrect posture.
Breathing disorders
The child's respiratory tract and the work of the chest should also be carefully assessed. Bad posture of a child often contributes to the positioning of the head in protraction (protraction), which leads to respiratory disorders, affects the incorrect development of the articulation system and the chest. Children who breathe abnormal pathways tend to be pale, smaller, and thinner than their peers.
A child who breathes through his mouth has difficulty drawing air through his nose. Less oxygen is supplied to his body, which is also associated with restless sleep, lack of energy, reluctance to play or metabolic disorders. Drying out of the mucous membranes in the mouth is caused by e.g. the reason for frequent respiratory infections.
Improper breathing also limits normal jaw development and temporomandibular joint function. Dysfunction of these joints correlates with, among other things, restricted movement in the cervical spine. Open mouth and lack of lip closure, oral breathing, drooling, decreased sensorimotor tone, and lack of proper muscle tone in the face and neck (Garliner 1982) should be diagnosed and treated by a speech therapist.
The right way of breathing is the basis for the formation of a correct bite and a nice and proportionate face.
Correct diagnosis: the sooner the better
Expert advises
Child development is a very complex topic and difficult to comprehensively address. Every parent wants their child to be healthy, develop properly, run efficiently, speak and read beautifully, and achieve good grades. However, children often lack skills that their peers already possess or that they should develop at a given stage of development. Therefore, by diagnosing abnormalities early, we can select activities, training, and therapies that will yield the best results and avoid long-term treatment later. There are no guidelines on this matter, but it's a good idea for every parent to consult with a physiotherapist, speech therapist, ophthalmologist, optometrist, or orthodontist before their child starts school.
We should remember that, as parents, we can also undertake various educational activities that foster faster maturation of the child's abilities and skills, and reduce activities that may inhibit the achievement of greater efficiency and independence.
When preparing our little student to go to school with a backpack, you should take care of the child's development, not just his backpack, place to work or school aids. It is important to invest in prophylaxis of physical and mental health in order to fully enjoy school learning and relationships with peers.
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