Hand-eye coordination is a person’s special ability, 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 manage to use the data obtained from the gaze to coordinate the movement of the hands.
The concept
Hand-eye coordination is a complex cognitive ability, important for the normal development of the child, his full-fledged education in school. After all, we use the eyes to concentrate our attention, helping our brain to establish where the body is in space. Hands are used to use this visual information to perform a particular task, and it is important to do this in a coordinated and simultaneous manner.
It is worth noting that hand-eye coordination is important not only for the child, but also for the adult. With it, you are able to carry out coordinated actions of the eyes and hands. In everyday life, we use hand-eye coordination almost constantly, so it is very important to develop it and, if possible, train. To correct behavior and our movements, we always use visual information. 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 eye-hand coordination. The fact is that when you write, your eyesight gives you the necessary information about the quality of writing and the position of the hand. All kinds of motor programs are created on its basis to correct problems that may arise as a result of feedback. It turns out a sequence of accurate 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 hand movement.
When driving a car, this ability is used by us constantly. With its help, hand movements are coordinated in accordance with the visual information that currently surrounds us.
Another example will be related to sports. Depending on the type of sport, visual-foot or visual-manual coordination dominates. In the first case, we are involved in athletics or football, and in the second - tennis or basketball. Moreover, in almost every type of sporting competition, the maximum coordination of our vision with the participation of the maximum number of muscle groups is required. 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 the designer, and an adult tries to insert a plastic card into an ATM.
Formation
The formation of hand-eye coordination becomes important already in senior preschool age. It is necessary to develop and improve it so that the child does not have problems while studying, this is crucial for the full-scale development of the baby when he is just preparing to go to school.
It is no secret that one of the main tasks of a preschooler’s parents is to prepare him for admission to a secondary educational institution. The development of fine motor skills, precise movements is a mandatory ability that should be formed in a child by this time. If a first grader has a poor development of motor skills, this will be a serious problem for him at school.
Practice shows that at six to seven years old, when children go to school, many remain with an extremely low level of hand-eye coordination. Because of this, their grapho-motor skills and fine motor skills are poorly developed. This is clearly manifested when the baby is not able to depict the letter, draw a straight line, gently stick the applique, cut it out of paper along the contour.
Poor finger motility leads to poor results when performing a variety of tasks. For example, when you need to draw something according to a pattern or circle a figure. In this case, the child does not succeed, he immediately drops working capacity, he gets tired almost immediately. When the 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, since in the process of studying a student will constantly have to simultaneously do two actions. For example, write something off or write off from the board. Joint actions of the hands and eyes are very important, it is necessary that the fingers "hear" the information that the eyes try to convey to them. The fact that the 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 draw from nature. In this case, the 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 completing tasks suffers.
Development
Therefore, the development of hand-eye coordination in preschoolers and primary schoolchildren is so important. This is an important element that is considered one of the fundamental in determining how much a child is ready to go to school. At the same time, it is worth remembering that kids constantly lose interest in the monotonous activities, which 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 way for the baby to perceive moving objects, the development of the child’s ability to keep a visual stimulus in the field of vision when performing a visual task, and the ability to follow the eyes with the actions performed by the hands.
Also, using this ability, the ability to confidently hold a pencil in your hand is formed. The skill is developed to draw straight lines between points, to draw oblique and curved lines from a given beginning to the end, to choose the most rational way when performing graphic tasks.
Examples of tasks
For the development of hand-eye coordination, there are a large number of various exercises. Examples of some of them are given in this article. The developmental game is called "Working with the Maze."
She will need a maze. To begin, invite the baby just to carefully consider it. After this, the teacher proposes to lead the fairy-tale hero to his house in the maze, rolling it with a wand. Moreover, on the one side of the labyrinth - figures of different colors, and on the other - empty squares that need to be filled, correlating each figure with the corresponding "window". Having followed all the way, it is necessary to put the necessary geometric figure in an empty square.
Another exercise for the development of hand-eye coordination in children is called "Wands-reels." There are two options for this game. In the first, the child has paths with an obstacle at the end, as well as a rope, one end of which is tied to a typewriter, and the other to a stick. The kid should wrap the rope on a 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 closely monitored by the eyes.
In the second version of this exercise, one end of the rope is tied to a stick, and the second to some object. The rope must be wound on a stick, working with a brush. Due to this, the item will rise up. You need to carefully monitor him with your eyes.
"Magic strings"
The Magic Thread hand-eye exercise also has two options. In the first case, a rope with Velcro, silhouette images and a carpet are used. The silhouette is attached to the carpet, and the child encircles it with a rope along the outer contour, carefully following all the movements with his eyes.
An alternative version of this hand-eye coordination game involves the use of a silhouette image 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 lay the thread along the contour of the silhouette.
Finally, for the development of hand-eye coordination of hands, the Magic Glass exercise is well suited. In addition to the glass itself, you will need a sheet of paper with some image and a pencil. The child will carefully circle objects, observing them through the "magic" glass.
Possible pathologies
It is important to check the baby’s level of development of this ability as early as possible, as parents may encounter various violations of hand-eye coordination, because of which serious pathologies can develop.
It is important to understand that this type of coordination can lead to glitches even if the eyes are not damaged and the child has good vision.
Moreover, any violation of motor or visual systems significantly impairs the coordination of eyes and hands. Muscle and vision pathologies cause problems with this cognitive ability. First of all, they include amblyopia, strabismus, postural imbalance, muscle hypotension, cross lateralization. In addition, brain injuries can affect certain areas that are responsible for perception and motility, causing disturbances in visomotor coordination.
These problems negatively affect a wide variety of activities. This is expressed in difficulties in learning, developmental disabilities, at school or university, the student makes many mistakes in his notes, he has scattered attention. Already an adult can experience problems in professional fields, for example, experience difficulties in collecting parts, typing on a computer, its effectiveness is noticeably reduced, which affects production indicators. Possible problems even in ordinary everyday life. Starting from sewing and driving a car and ending with such an elementary action as bringing a spoon to your mouth.
Coordination score
There are several ways to evaluate this type of coordination. It is best to measure this cognitive ability as early as possible so that there is time to fix it.
To do this, there are various tasks that are used in various fields.
- At school, to determine where the child has difficulty in completing assignments, why he has poor academic performance.
- In medicine, to establish whether a patient can eat without assistance after a complex brain operation or drive a car.
- In various professional fields, you can evaluate the most effective employees. This is especially often used in works in which visomotor coordination is most important.
Tests
Tests that can be used to evaluate this cognitive ability are aimed at establishing a connection between visual accompaniment behind the object and hands, how reliable the neuromuscular ability of the user is.
So, during the synchronization test, the ball in motion appears on the computer screen. The goal is to coordinate the pointer with the movement of the ball as precisely as possible.
In the multitasking test, you need to observe the movement of the white ball and follow the words that constantly appear on the screen. When a word on the screen correlates with the color with which it is written, it is necessary to signal, while monitoring both stimuli. In this test, it is imperative to prepare for possible changes while controlling vision and control abilities.
During the speed test, a blue rectangle appears on the screen. You should click on it as quickly as possible, while keeping it closer to the center of the screen. The more often you can do this, the higher the result.
How to improve cognitive ability?
Hand-eye coordination lends itself to training, like other human cognitive abilities. In particular, specialists developed a series of exercises designed to restore this and other cognitive functions.
During their implementation, neural connections and the brain enhance their functions. If you exercise regularly, this will help strengthen the brain structures involved in this ability. If necessary, to coordinate each action with the help of hands and eyes, neural connections will begin to work faster and more efficiently.