Crawling - A Favorite Heavy-Work Activity

Educators often hear from therapists, "When in doubt, crawl, crawl, crawl!" It seems from the onset, crawling is an amazing develop-mental activity that translates into all kinds of academic success.

The act of crawling:

• Calms by activating heavy work receptors in the muscles and joints
• Continues to calm by building muscles that help breathing
• Helps children sit in chairs by building back and stomach muscles
• Coordinates two body sides so hand specialization is more likely to occur
• Improves handwriting by developing shoulder, arm, and wrist stability
• Helps develop fine-motor coordination as it builds the arches of the hand

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