Is it true that crawling=better brain development i.e. those that don't crawl (just bum shuffle) are already doomed on the IQ front...?!

[madmarriedNika]

[paranoid mum alert emoticon] A friend told me yesterday that crawling has been shown to be good for brain development, much better than bum shuffling and going straight to cruising without crawling properly.

Is this true ? Where is the scientific research to back this up?
And what can you do if you have a bum shuffler who's beginning to cruise and not looking likely to crawl at all?!

Thanks x

My little brother is dyspraxic and was a bum-shuffler, he was also well over 2 before he was walking confidently.

He is now 6ft5in and is a happy well adjusted individual, left home last year and is enjoying his job working for a small charity. He has a First in Politics too, so his brain is obv not doing too badly either.

Some babies never crawl, sounds like yours is doing fine

Thanks all, I am no longer worried at all, and will certainly not be losing any sleep over this!!

Incidentally I wonder a lot about the connection between wooden/laminate/tiled floors and rate of bum shuffling... When DS was young we lived in a carpeted house, so he never even tried bum shuffling, whereas now we have no carpet and DD worked out bum shuffling pretty quickly...

complete bollix, my son bumshuffled. He did jigsaws upsidedown with the picture hidden for the extra challenge. He's a genius

There is some link, as lucyellensmum and TortoiseSHELL said, to do with crawling developing left/right connections in the brain.

Several studies have shown that a high proportion (well over 50%, iirc) of dyslexic/dyspraxic people didn't crawl.

However, that doesn't automatically mean that a child who doesn't crawl will have dyslexia/dyspraxia.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation really, is the dyspraxia because they didn't crawl or didn't they crawl because they are dyspraxic?

If I was being charitable, I'd say your friend misunderstood what she'd heard but she's probably more likely to be being competitive mummy .

WEll, funnily enough, my son is left handed. So now I don't know what to think. But now that he's been walking for 6 months, the fact that he bum shuffled seems like a distant memory.

It will be like that for you too OP, you'll have to be reminded that he bum shuffled!

ps tiger woods didn't walk til he was two by the way!

That's really interesting, greenelizabeth!

DD1 (just 4) was a bum shuffler, didn't walk confidently till about 22 months.

She is bright and good verbally but looks like she'll be left handed.

Would be interesting to see if others have found this too. Waiting now to see what DD2 (6 months) will do!

I think swampster has a point actually, i was so paranoid about DD sleeping on her tummy that i wouldnt even let her have tummy time and later on when i did put her on her tummy, she hated it.

Interestingly she is left handed and it took a long time for this to become apparent (my HV has suggested she will be dyslexic - so what, what I want for my child is happiness), but DP and myself both right handed and both bumshuffled.

I don't know if I'll be depressing the OP more if I say that my son (formerly a bum shuffler) is on the waiting list for speech therapy...

BUT I know he is very clever. He can change the channel and my mum can't do that (two controls, not as easy as it sounds) and lots of other little clues that he's clever. NO WORDS though.

The bum shuffling will seem like a distant memory soon. Now that he is walking there is no sign that he didn't crawl. So there's no lasting symptoms to being a BSer!

Interesting to discuss, to see if there are links between the speed of development, but I thnk they will all get there in the end. I mean, you know that old saying, have you heard of an 18 yr old who can't pick up a raisin?!

LEM, is your HV suggesting she'll be dyslexic because she's left handed?

I just KNOW my son will have dyslexia. MUCH as I love the little tyke. For months I was thinking, willhe ever walk, now I'm thinking will he ever TALK (he two and a half) and now I'm bracing myself a few years down the line for 'willhe ever read?' ah well. at least the school has great SN teachers and they're so aware of dyslexia these days unlike in my day, when the dyslexic was perceived to be that thick boy.

Ds1 crawled at 6 months - has been having NHS speech therapy for 3 years.

Feel better yet?

dd1 has pretty severe dyspraxia. she crawled for ages.

dd2 is NT. she never crawled, only bum shuffled.

i'm left-handed and the polar opposite of dyslexic.

DH is right-handed and so dyslexic he takes ages to read anything at all and the only book he's actually read cover to cover that wasn't audio was the Highway Code. he even had to have a reader for his theory tests (he took another one to drive a minibus) and had extra time on his road test because of his dyspraxia. he crawled from 8 months and walked at 13 months.

i never walked till i was 2 and was a serious athlete for many years.

Ds1 didn't talk at 2.6 but believe me, he is 5 and 3 months and he reads beautifully. Enough to make me proud, not so much it makes me worry!

The SALT who assessed my son was very cagey about saying there was a link between late speech and dyslexia. She has all his notes though, and it's all there about the bum shuffling.

I didn't hear a firm 'no definitely not, no link at all, don't worry'.

But she didn't say yes they always go hand in hand either. So I'm going to try and touch wood. It'd be nice if he gave me a break and surprised me by doing something effortlessly

I sound awful. I love him so much.

Sorry for thread hi-jack. I got typorrhoea here.

In my extremely unscientific opinion and experience, little boys who are slow to speak are whizzo at lego and train tracks. Get your boy some lego, Greenliz

A steamed poater (odd name ) You are of course right that teaching a child to crawl wont cure any conditions like dyspraxia, that involve communication between right and left side of the brain. And remember that not all dyspraxics/dyslexics bum shuffled and MOST bumshufflers have neither dyslexia or dyspraxia. However, exercises that encourage crawling (in an older child) does help to strengthen neuronal connections which require left/right signalling (the more neuronal pathways are stimulated the more the stronger they are - which is why if you are learning something, repeated exposure will make that memory more concrete and last longer, will also result in some instances in an almost involuntary action, ie walking/writing (you do it without thinking). and this is recommened by one of the dyspraxia websites i have looked at. Sorry, been at the wine and im waffling

There is some research to do with crawling and visual development, depth perception and fear of heights. My HV mentioned this to me when I asked about DS not crawling.

here is something about it

Probably that got translated into some oversimplified media report and through chinese whispers among parents it ended up as "not crawling = not bright" - but I don't think there's any evidence for that at all.

wouldnt worry too much my DS couldnt crawl until he could walk. He did a strange commando thing where hed drag himself along with his arms now its funny but at the time was quite worrying as thought he had something wrong with legs also my DS couldnt sit until she could walk and there was no reason for it she just didnt want to do it.

They don't, my son writes me touching little love notes that go "to mummy I love you"

and he is still under the SALT umbrella.

His attention spand is CRAP but his maths is FABBO

Sometimes you don't see certain talents until they are old enough for them to shine - if ds1 had been able to speak at 2, doubtless he would have counted. If he had been able to sit still at 3 and 44, he probably would have read early. But he couldn't, so he didn't.

Don't forget to have your boy's ears tested regularly, esp if prone to infections.

Olihan, no not because of that. A number of factors were worrying me at one time in her development (she had lost her language skills) and i was tearing my hear out.

You are right colditz!! slotting little pieces of track together. That is exactly his cup of tea!

That's okay then LEM ,was a bit if that was all she was going on.

I've been trying to find some research papers to link to about this because I studied dyslexia as part of my dissertation but all the ones online need subscriptions ('twas all paper when I was at uni, back in the dark ages) - but the best I could find was this:

'Another theory is that learning difficulties like dyslexia and dyspraxia are linked to a lack of movement when very young.
It has been suggested that some children?s postural control reflexes will not develop correctly as part of the natural development process. It has been claimed that about 70 per cent of dyslexics never went through the crawling stage as babies. It is normal for babies to miss the crawling phase and this does not mean that a child will get dyslexia but some believe the theory that dyslexics, who never fully developed the correct reflexes as babies, can be helped by using special exercise routines, designed to copy movements made by the foetus and young babies.'

Madeleine Portwood is very big in Dyspraxia circles and does a lot of work on left/right connections in her therapies, so there is something in it.

I'm also finding it interesting how many people on here have said 'mine didn't crawl and they're very bright' but the children do have some kind of dyslexia/dyspraxia issues. It's like snowleopard says, these things are oversimplified and become reduced to a very basic level amoung parents which is actually not at all what the actual research implies.

It's certainly not as blanket as saying 'if they don't crawl they'll be less intelligent' because dyspraxia and dyslexia have nothing to do with intelligence problems. But not crawling has been linked to both those conditions, so you can't say 'bollocks, it doesn't make any difference', because in some children it does.

Lego and K'nex are good for fine motor development and kept ds1 quiet for HOURS. Well, kept him occupied, he was quiet anyway

Of course not crawling "makes a difference" in some children - in the minority of children who bottom shuffle, it is a sign of problems with co-ordination. Children with dyspraxia and almost all children with dyslexia have problems with co-ordination. Teaching such children to crawl will of course help them with their co-ordination, as it will teach them a new skill that requires communication between the left and right side of the brain, and increase their strength (low muscle tone is also quite common in dyspraxic children, so strengthening exercises are good to counteract this). It is therefore a good idea to teach a child KNOWN to have co-ordination difficulties to crawl at some point, as part of the long journey to help them learn the skills they need in everday life. Having done this, dyspraxic children will still need help learning to feed themselves neatly, dress themselves and write clearly - it won't cure them of their co-ordination problems, however young they are when you teach them. And there is not enough evidence to prove it will help them with anything else whatsoever(eg reading, attention, perception, concentration or IQ).

My son didn't roll over, get from lying to sitting, sitting to standing, bottom shuffle or crawl until he started physiotherapy at 15 months. At 17 months he could bottom shuffle, at 19 months he could crawl and at 23 months he could walk. Does he have any problems with his co-ordination, attention, perception, concentration or reading now, at age 4? Not so far as I can see - he can read fluently, write clearly, has the most amazing memory and concentration, and shows no signs whatsoever of having perceptual problems (and was clearly afraid of heights long before he could crawl...). All in all, he's amazingly advanced (and I really don't think that's because we had to teach him to crawl!!!). He's still got low muscle tone, hypermobility and rather weak muscles, though, so I suspect there is a physical cause to that, rather than a brain-based one. But he's proof so far as I'm concerned that not learning to crawl at the "appropriate" time does not damage or limit the potential of a normal brain.