The Vestibular System

If you drop something and bend over to pick it up without losing your balance and falling on your head, you can thank your vestibular system. The vestibular system is something you probably didn't even know you possessed, but it's working for you all the time.

The vestibular system is in the inner ear and controls our sense of movement and balance. When the head moves, vestibular fluid in the ear also moves and allows the ears to sense how far and fast the head has moved. It also influences other sensory systems such as seeing and hearing, for example. It is the first sensory system to fully develop in a fetus. The vestibular system develops by 6 months after conception.

The vestibular system is involved in almost everything we do, either directly or indirectly. It affects the automatic nervous system, the auditory system, visual functions, and muscle tone, balance and proprioception (how the body senses its movement and position).

Infants need movement for vestibular simulation. According to Eric Jensen, author of "Teaching with the Brain in Mind", babies are probably not getting enough sensory motor stimulation. He states that "today's infant is placed in a car seat for hundreds of precious motor development hours. In 1960, the average 2-year-old had spent, since birth, an estimated 200 hours in a car. In comparison, today's 2-year-old has spent an estimated 500 hours in a car seat!"

"Tummy time" (when the baby is laying on a blanket on his or her stomach and able to move and roll around at will) and other movement - even rocking - provide babies with vestibular stimulation. These types of movements are important for children as a lack of stimulation has been linked to learning problems.

Children who have trouble keeping their balance, sitting upright and just having a good sense of where they are in space, and are asked, in addition, to track words from left to right and the top to the bottom of the page as they read (not to mention decode words and comprehend text) have a very difficult, if not impossible, task in front of them.

To provide toddlers and school-aged children with vestibular stimulation, your local park is a good place to start. Swinging on swings, spinning on a merry-go-round and even rolling down a grassy hill are all activities which will help the vestibular system mature.

The bottom line in helping your child develop an effective vestibular system is providing them with opportunities to move, move, move!

Sources:

http://pages.prodigy.net/unohu/neuro_vest.htm

"Teaching with the Brain in Mind" by Eric Jensen, ASCD, Alexandria, Virginia, copyright 2005, reprinted in 2008.