The Neuroscience Behind a Student’s Need to Move

Announcer (00:00): This is the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.

Vicki Davis (00:05): We have so many amazing episodes on the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast over these years, and we’re approaching a thousand. Now, the number one is about students need to move. It’s titled Why Kids Can’t Stop Moving: The Neuroscience Behind a Student’s Need to Move. And this episode, well, it tops them all with 46,509 downloads. We have Suzanne Cresswell’s episode top in the charts. And this one was released February 1st, 2018. It was part of season three and it was episode 244. Thank you to everyone who has come on the show. We have so many guests who’ve appeared and every single show is important and had intentionality behind it. I hope that you will take a listen to all of our back episodes. I know a lot of podcasts take offline their old episodes and charge for that. But right now, everything on the 10 Minute Teacher is free. So I do encourage you to go back, listen to so many awesome episodes and guests. And now, let’s listen to why kids can’t stop moving. Today, we’re talking with Suzanne Cresswell. She’s an occupational therapist and physical therapist. Now, Suzanne, what is a unique learner?

Suzanne Cresswell (01:32): A unique learner is a little bit of all of us, really. Children and adults have their own way of making sense of the world around them. When we think of learning, we think of the sensory system taking in information visually, auditorily, tactilely. And each one of us has our own unique way of interpreting that information, but in general, kind of patterns of how the brain collects this information. And in our education model, we augment our understanding of the developmental model and teaching incrementally, you know, as the child can develop these skills. But a unique learner tends to be on a little different path. They tend to learn at a different pace. And the emphasis in my book, Unique Learner Solutions, is that these students learn differently, not incorrectly necessarily, but it’s a difficult thing sometimes to capture in our general education classroom where we’re focused on the curriculum and the standards of meeting certain timeframes that certain ideas are needing to be presented to the classroom. So the unique learner can be that child that causes the teacher to sort of take a deep breath sometimes when they think about planning their morning or planning their day, because this is an individual who doesn’t always follow the flow, the rhythm, the timing of the learning that goes on in general in the classroom.

Vicki Davis (02:53): Two of my three children have what I call learning differences. I don’t call them disabilities because my children can learn. They just learn differently. So would you say that someone who has a learning difference is a unique learner or not always?

Suzanne Cresswell (03:07): No, we’re talking about the same person.

Vicki Davis (03:10): So these children are learning differently. We realize that. Sometimes they’ll show it by acting out. Sometimes they’ll show it because you look at them and you know they’re trying really, really hard. They’re not understanding it. What do we do? Where do we start?

Suzanne Cresswell (03:24): I’ll start with the comment when they’re acting out. That right there requires a little more inquiry as to what might be motivating the child to act in a way that we would characterize as acting out. Are they physically moving frequently in their chair? Are they interrupting and are off topic? Are they head on the desk, not interacting type of acting out? And to go beyond that, to take it to the next step and start to look at what might be contributing to that particular, I’m going to call that a strategy on the student’s part. What I’ve learned in working with this population for 30 years in a medical setting and in a school setting and in sports setting with young athletes, some young people tend to develop strategies even on a subconscious level in order to assist their brain to stay engaged. We’re hardwired to learn. We must take in information. We must integrate that with past events, our memory, and process that in terms of our intellectual understanding in order to take the next step. This is something that is as necessary as breathing in and breathing out. So to make that essential process work for some of these children that have a different way of perceiving information, they come up with strategies. Some children require a heck of a lot of movement to keep their body going. And I’d like to explain a little bit about that if I might, but it goes into big fat neurophysiologic words, but I think it helps to understand. What do you think? Should we go there?

Vicki Davis (05:00): So, I mean, I know, for example, I have a lot of kids who have, you know, ADD or have other things and we’ll do planks in the classroom. We’ll stop and I’ll say, okay, we’re going to do push-ups, so you’re going to do planks, or I’m going to go for a minute, just get some of that energy out. Is that what you’re talking about?

Suzanne Cresswell (05:16): I want to tell you why you’re doing planks and why that’s working. But first of all, let me put my hands together and applaud you. That’s fantastic. So let’s talk about that busy child, the busy one, the hyperactive child of ADHD, if you like. Those are often the students that we’ll see in a general education setting. They’ve got good understanding of many of the academic concepts when they are in a situation that they can demonstrate that to the teacher. And yet they are at a little different rhythm than the other students. They’re moving more or they’re at the end of the answer when you’re still really looking to see how the child solves it in the process. These types of things that are, shall I say, some days it must be upsetting. I mean, it offers like another avenue for the teacher and sometimes that’s difficult to integrate. So it ends up being the language that the child is having an upset or an outbreak or what have you. So I totally understand the use of that language. But the interesting thing is to look a little bit beyond that. You see, in order to learn, it’s a very developmentally wired process, starting in infancy and moving on. And let me just quickly take you back. Okay, infancy. First of all, we’re moving out of a buoyant environment inside our mommy’s womb. And the first experience we have, the first neurologic thing that our brain understands is the gravitational pull of the Earth’s surface, having moved from the buoyancy. That’s the very first thing that happens, and the brain connects with that feeling and then must tell the muscles and joints what to do in order to respond to gravity. So rather than going, if you don’t mind my saying, kind of plop, splat, they need to figure out that’s gravity. And I need to tell my head, neck, and arms basically to do a little bit of a plank if I’m on my tummy so I can lift my head and continue breathing and then ultimately move to a source of food and that tactile nurturing. Well, that right there, that feeling gravity and then telling your muscles and joints what to do is as part of our sensory system that we have senses, taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. But these two senses, feeling gravity, it’s a word called the vestibular system, and feeling your muscles and joints respond to your commands, if you will, is the proprioceptive system. We continue to feed the vestibular and proprioceptive system. We continue to feed our sense of feeling gravity operate on our body, feeling our muscles and joints respond optimally to gravity all of our life. But we move it to a part of a brain that we don’t really interact with that much. That’s why we like walking. That’s why we like exercise. That’s why we like yoga as adults. These are things that we do, we bring into our life. It’s in our mind, in our body, in our muscles and so forth. That’s why you’re doing planks for these kids, because you’re stimulating their proprioceptive center. You’re stimulating their vestibular center. And the children that require movement, that are moving in the class at a different rhythm, different rate, and moving at all when the other children are sitting still, this is a child that needs to interact with the vestibular center and the proprioceptive center in order to keep the brain charged for learning. And understanding that, then we can create a safe way for that child to be able to function in a social classroom environment if they need movement. Then we provide them with perhaps a seat pan cushion that’s slightly inflated so that they can move and yet they’re physically within their seat so they’re not interrupting others. Some classrooms will obtain the yoga ball, the therapy ball and find a collar for it so it doesn’t roll anywhere. And the student then will sit on the ball. And of course, if you’re sitting on a round chair, a round surface, your brain is continually interacting with the gravitational pull of the Earth’s surface and your body’s ability to respond to those movements. And that continually feeds the brain and keeps the brain active in order for learning.

Vicki Davis (09:13): And, you know, this is so related to even flexible seating, isn’t it?

Suzanne Cresswell (09:18): Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, it’s very much the same concept. So we will provide, once we begin to understand that it’s a strategy, we look beyond the erratic behavior, if you will, and look at what that might be caused by, then we can provide solutions for the student. And then the student is able, in their unique way, to keep their brain and body geared up and continuing to participate in the classroom lessons and the learning that occurs. But my tendency is to walk into a classroom to see the student I’ve been invited to provide some assistance with and to look at the child basically as already perfect, if you will, and that they are doing the best they can in order to function within their circumstances. And how successful is that? And sometimes the way they’re acting is exactly what you want in the gymnasium, but not in the library. And they can’t tell that distinction. And so they need to be taught, you know, the place for things and how to be able to identify that. But while you’re doing planks, that’s putting pressure through the joints of the arms and hands. And that pressure is what informs the brain, the proprioceptive center. And overall, that kind of floods the brain with a calming feeling. When you think planks, when you think movement breaks, even if you think of recess and lunch breaks, that’s all the yoga in the middle of the day, if that has meaning for you, yoga, or that’s the taking the walk in the middle of your work day. That’s what we all need, but children even more need movement infused frequently during their day. Useful movement, the planks are wonderful. Other movement patterns that help learning readiness are that right brain, left brain types of movement as well, where you’re crossing your arms across midline and those types of movement breaks are useful in the classroom all the time.

Vicki Davis (11:21): Well, we’ve learned so much today. And the truth is that there is a reason so many kids can’t stop moving. There’s nothing wrong with them. They don’t need to be fixed. They don’t need to be just told to have more control. You know, I think as a teacher that giving brain breaks, giving movement breaks, giving flexible seating, this is all part of being a good teacher. And I think that Suzanne has given us a healthy way to view why some of our students just can’t stop moving.

Suzanne Cresswell (11:52): That’s true. Yes, absolutely. And I have information for you on our website, and I have an e-book for your listeners as well that they can access at our website, Unique Learner Solutions dot com backslash e-book. And it provides some red flags and it reviews what you and I were just talking about in terms of just scratching below the surface and finding out what’s motivating that behavior that seems so nonproductive. And the teachers are doing that now. The modern education model embraces movement. Very kinetic education model. It’s delightful to see. Helping a lot of different learners.

Vicki Davis (12:32): And it really does make a difference. So I hope that all of us will learn more about all of these different topics and introducing more movement into our classrooms.

Suzanne Cresswell (12:41): Excellent. I hope so, too.

Vicki Davis (12:41): Thank you for tuning in to 10 Minute Teacher Podcast. Join us here every weekday and subscribe to the Classroom Matters newsletter. See you later, educator.