Crawling is defined as moves on the hands and knees or by dragging the body close to the ground. Almost all babies learn crawling at the age of 5-9 months. Some children skip the process of crawling and directly start walking.
There is no harm if a child learns walking early, missing the initial step of crawling but that does not mean that crawling is not important. As a result of the process and mechanism of crawling, different areas of the brain are stimulated as a result of which future learning of an individual is deeply strengthened.
Basically crawling helps in the strengthening of the body muscles, trunk and the shoulders in a human body alongside controlling the cognitive processes of the brain such as concentration, memory and comprehension. Crawling also develops to a large extent in eye-hand co-ordination, reading and writing.
“As an artist, you don’t think about the parabola or the arcs you’re describing or where you’re going to ultimately end up, you’re just kind of crawling around, seeing what’s out there.” Michael Nesmith.
Image Source: snazzybaby.com.au
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Crawling today does not only include the traditional type of crawling where a baby walks on his or her knees and palms, crawling is of various kinds. Some babies lie on their bottoms thus using their hands to move forward while the other babies crawl on their palms and feet which are popularly known as “bear crawling”.
Absence of crawling in the early years can prove to be harmful because, certain researches have stated the fact that lack of crawling in some of the cases has led to autistic disorders and also ADD/ADHD syndromes.
Binocular vision, one of the most important steps of development takes place simultaneously along with crawling. Crawling, infant strain their eyes by looking at a distance and then looking again at their hands. As a result of this practice, children learn to train and adjust their eye sights to use the blackboard.
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Crawling strengthens both the left and the right sides of the brain as a result of which an individual’s brain can properly communicate with other parts of the body for their successful functioning.
Apart from the strengthening of bones and muscles of the body, crawling is helpful in organizing and stimulating the hormones, the eyes with the help of crawling is helpful in nurturing the skills like reading and writing which helps in the future.
Yes it is true that all babies do not crawl but that does not mean that they do not develop. Nature is always at work and development can take place by other means but every parent should encourage their children to crawl because of the reason that crawling is healthy and one of the most significant signs for the development of a baby.