With a song or rhyme, children also learn to visually track with fluidity and rhythm. Visual tracking – During hand clapping games with a partner, children must move their eyes continually from left to right, up and down.Adding verbalizing the correct hand when in use, will help them to build left and right side recognition, and improve body awareness. Crossing midline – Let’s consider crossing midline for a moment: left to right, right to left, reaching diagonally across going up or down.Once the movements are learned, they become more automatic. Motor planning – Most any clapping game involves a lot of motor planning to practice the movements needed repetitively.Bilateral coordination – hand clapping activities work on the use of both hands and arms to coordinate and reach with good timing either to a song, rhyme, a game with a partner, and even when hand clapping alone.This is a great way to work with a friend on hitting targets and visual motor integration. Eye hand coordination skills– clapping hands together with a friend requires motor coordination to move and place hands together at the same time and positioning.These skills can be carried over because of the confidence built up while playing with a friend in a low-stress situation. When playing a cooperative game like clapping together, there is a component of impulse control, task completion, working memory, attention, sequencing, self-reflection, emotional control, and self-monitoring. Executive function skills– To complete a hand clapping activity, a child develops cognitive skills, but some of the softer skills might be overlooked.Read on to see what skill areas the simple use of hand clapping can help develop: The study found that kids that participate in hand clapping games have neater handwriting, write better and make fewer spelling errors. In fact, research shows that hand clapping rhymes and games make an improvement in motor and cognitive skills. Why? Hand clapping activities are the ‘no-tools needed’ approach to building so many skills! Hand clapping actually does have many benefits to skill development, and can be a great way to work on specific skills with children. I wasn’t able to find research on clapping therapy, but these are some things to think about when using hand clapping games to build on therapy goals. This can be a potential way to promote healing. So clapping hands is a great way to activate the sensory systems.Īnother consideration with clapping therapy is the fact that clapping stimulates blood circulation. We know that heavy work or deep pressure through the joints brings awareness and “wakes up” the muscles and joints. Some of this idea is linked to reflexology but other considerations can be connected to the proprioception. #One hand clapping game skinThis is considered a viable therapy because clapping the hands together activates skin and joint receptors in the hands (and upper extremities) to activate various systems within the body and brain. Essentially, the use of clapping therapy is the act of clapping hands to heal. We cover how each of these areas (and the sub-skills) are developed through the simple clapping activity in therapy.īut did you know there is a thing called “clapping therapy”? This was a new concept to me but one that piqued my interest. There are so many benefits to hand clapping games, from motor skills, sensory motor, visual motor, and even executive functioning skill development. Have you tried it? It’s a fun activity, whether it be to a classic game, a made-up song, or just as a quick transition between activities. Hand clapping games are a fun and engaging way to interact with kids during therapy.
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