Abstract
This chapter aims to shed light on the relationship between the development of laterality and the learning of mathematics in early childhood education using the ABN method. Thus, the authors present an experience developed with 24 children of 4 and 5 years old from several sessions of physical education where laterality and mathematics were worked on in the framework of a project developed in the classroom. The neuropsychological laterality test and a psychomotor table with values referred exclusively to manual and foot laterality, and indicators referred to the ABN method were used as evaluation instruments. The results obtained indicate that students with homogeneous right- or left-handed laterality obtain better results, as well as those with crossed laterality, since they have defined their manual and foot dominance. However, students with undefined laterality obtain worse results, even showing a lateral tendency towards the use of the right side of the body.
TopBackground
The Importance of Physical Education in Early Childhood Education
The Infant Education stage has a globalizing perspective and from the first years the motor skills are what help the child to know and explore the environment, this provides the child with a great number of experiences in different areas. As Gil-Madrona, Contreras-Jordán, González-Víllora and Gómez-Barreto (2008) point out, this global development is based on perceptive-motor factors, physical-motor factors and affective-relational factors.
The works and studies on motricity by various authors such as Piaget (1969), Wallon (1980), Freud (1968), Ajuriaguerra (1978), Le Boulch (1981), among others, have concluded that motricity contributes to the development of personality and human behaviour. The latter is made up of several spheres such as the affective sphere (feelings and emotions), the social sphere (relations and interactions with others and the environment), the cognitive sphere (thought and language) and the psychomotor sphere (movement and body control) (Gil-Madrona, Contreras, Díaz & Lera, 2006). Another attribution that we must take into account about the importance of motor skills in the first years has to do with children's health problems, which are increasing in our society, due to the sedentary lifestyle linked to child obesity. This makes it essential that healthy habits related to movement and physical activity are put into practice from childhood to avoid future problems (Gil-Madrona, Contreras-Jordán, González-Víllora & Gómez-Barreto, 2008).
In short, motor development is very relevant in the global development of the child and in health prevention. For this, it is necessary to provide children with a wide variety of experiences that favour the development of the body, its knowledge and control, as well as the development of a positive self-concept and self-esteem. Finally, physical activity must be present in our lives, and the sooner it is started the better, since it contributes positively to all aspects of our lives.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Methodology: Set of strategies, procedures and actions organized and planned by the teaching staff, in a conscious and reflexive way, in order to make possible the learning of the students and the achievement of the proposed objectives.
Dysgraphia: Impairment of the ability or faculty to write.
Global Perspective: Consideration of learning as a product of establishing multiple connections between what is new and what has been learned previously. It is, therefore, a procedure of approach of the student to the reality to know and, whose success, will depend in a fundamental way that the established relations and the constructed meanings are wide and diverse.
Qualitative: It is that which is related to the quality or the quality of something, that is, to the way of being or the properties of an object, an individual, an entity or a state.
Cerebral Hemisphere: Each of the two parts that make up the cerebral cortex and that are responsible, in a specialized way, for different functions.
Dysortography: Difficulty in applying orthographic rules to writing, which may or may not be associated with dyslexia or dysgraphia.
Quantitative: Which refers to quantity and, therefore, is linked to variables that are measurable.
Dyslexia: Alteration of the ability to read by which the order of letters, syllables or words are confused or altered.