Motor skills and thinking

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I love Mostofsky's research into action models and see a link betweeen developing physical agility and my son's (who has a diagnosis of Autism and SPD) flexibility in thinking. Joshua’s first visible idea in play came just one week after he had been able to climb onto a swing in a new way, showing his first idea in motor skills. I find that by offering Joshua opportunities to have control over his body he seemed to gain increasing control over his thoughts.
Do you find this to be the case?

i cannot speak as a parent [not in this lifetime] but i can vouch for the brain-expanding effects of physical exercise, especially novel physical exercise.

I wonder if the novel physical exercise is to do wth the Action models Mostofsky writes of being required in and linking motor and (social) thinking? Here is the link to Mostofskys and Ewen's paper 'Altered connectivity and action model formation in autism is autism.' http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21467306

Control over my body? That sounds nice.

For me they're completely unrelated. I find it weird to even think they could be related.

I've always been really clumsy, really cognitively flexible (I'm extremely creative, and good at seeing multiple ways of looking at one thing), and have little control over my thoughts (eg I don't think I had any choice in becoming atheist, for example, because I just realized one day that religion didn't make logical sense to me).

Recently, I've started taking karate. My coordination has gotten better, and I'm less afraid of physical violence, but it has had no impact whatsoever on my thought patterns. Apart from me having learnt new things, but that happens with any new activity, physical or not.

My guess is your kid was just needing the sensory stimulation, and motor activities get his arousal level to a more optimal level. We think best at medium arousal - too high or low and we run into problems. (I get extremely inflexible when overloaded, for example. When underaroused, I get attention problems.)

[quote="Ettina"

For me they're completely unrelated. I find it weird to even think they could be related.



My guess is your kid was just needing the sensory stimulation, and motor activities get his arousal level to a more optimal level. We think best at medium arousal - too high or low and we run into problems. (I get extremely inflexible when overloaded, for example. When underaroused, I get attention problems.)[/quote]
Thank you Ettina, maybe it is for some children, ideas kick in developmentally in motor first and then in play etc, and then like you say it more a case of helping with regulation.

i've always been clumsy....my dad used to always yell at me when we were doin construction as a kid and i'd screw up because i wouldn't get somethin even or i'd break a tool...

driving....i'm pretty darn good....dont understand the people who cannot drive....i learned to drive a go cart every 4th of july then it was just easy and i loved it...still do.

i still run into walls, break tools, drop things, etc....

but i guess just comes with the turf.