Martial Arts: a good sport for children with learning and attention difficulties

Martial arts include several different forms, like karate, judo and tae kwon do, which teach striking and blocking and judo and jiu-jitsu, which focus on wrestling. They are part of ancient cultures in Asia meant (and are still intended) for self-defence. The benefits of all these forms lie in the fact that they use very specific, repetitive movements which rely on a connection between the brain and the body. This has several beneficial spin-offs.

The nature of these sports helps to improve coordination, a tendency to impulsivity, the ability to focus and pay attention, self-esteem and other important learning-related skills.

Peg Rosen (see more of her blogs at www.relish-this.blogspot.com), lists nine potential benefits:

Martial arts focus on individual progress and growth rather than on team participation. Traditional sports can demand too much from children with learning challenges and many are not able to meet the demands of a competitive team. They also may lack the coordination for activities such as ballet or gymnastics.
Goals in martial arts are concrete and attainable. Some children with learning difficulties may feel discouraged because they never “win” at anything. In martial arts, children work at their own pace and each time they master a new skill level they earn a different coloured belt. This is highly motivating and boosts self-esteem.
Routines are broken down into manageable chunks. A certain skill in in martial arts can have many different movements. Each can gradually be mastered by repeating the movements and adding steps as they go. They learn to anticipate which step comes next and eventually put everything together into fluid movements. All of this helps develop their working memory.
Self-control and concentration are fundamental to martial arts. Children have to stay focused in order to learn and perform. When a child’s focus drifts, instructors will often ask them to take the “ready stance.” This position allows them to reset and ready themselves for what’s next.
The deliberate, repetitive movements of martial arts can help children improve their sense of proprioception. This is a knowledge of where their body is in space – a sensory system that serves as a foundation for learning and coordination and one that is often seen as being underdeveloped in those with learning difficulties.
Martial arts provide structure and clear expectations for behaviour. Good martial arts instructors have clear rules and constantly reinforce them. They also emphasize good behaviour in and out of class.
The activities provide a safe outlet for excess energy. While aggressive or violent behaviour is not allowed, kicking, karate chopping or grappling are healthy ways of releasing frustration or anger while still practicing self control.
Respect is a core value in martial arts. All participants are expected to display respect for their instructor and Negativity is generally not tolerated in class, and children are encouraged to support each other.
Those who practice martial arts are regarded with respect by others.Children with learning difficulties often feel inferior and less capable than others but lots of youngsters think that martial arts are ‘cool.’ It’s much easier to feel special when you’re wearing martial arts gear and breaking boards in half.

While martial arts are not considered to be a ‘treatment’ for learning difficulties, experience has shown that many children do benefit and their more traditional treatments may be supported and helped by participating in one of these forms of activity.

ILT strives to uncover the root causes of children’s learning difficulties – and help them cope at school and home. Visit our website www.ilt.co.zato learn more about this approach. We offer accredited courses over correspondence for teachers (CPD points with SACE as well as credits on SAQA for further qualifications), parents and helping professionals to enhance understanding of why children fail to thrive in school Our training also points the way to effective help.

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Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy. Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.