Hand-eye coordination is a basic human function; it is the ability to coordinate information received from the eyes with the motions of the hands to accomplish a task. It is a rapid development from birth through the first year, continues to speed along through age 3 and refines itself until the child is approximately 7. Hand-eye coordination is essential in developing basic skills, such as writing and using scissors, as well as more advanced physical skills related to sports, driving and job-related tasks.
The Brain
The brain is where hand-eye coordination comes together, where the visual cues sent to your brain by your eyes merge with the motor skills that tell your arm and hand to move in certain directions. This merger occurs in the brain’s parietal cortex, an area just behind the top of your head that controls sensation and muscle control. A 1999 issue of Science featured a study showing that the same neurons in the parietal cortex were used in the process of reaching for an object, regardless of where the arm was reaching, though different “hot spots” lit up when the eye’s focus shifted from one location to the next.
Children
Children have a natural progression in developing hand-eye coordination. Reaching for objects, grabbing items, clapping and even basic self-feeding are all normal parts of an infant’s developing hand-eye coordination. This eventually grows into a preference for being right-handed or left-handed, as well as understanding spatial cues such as under, over and beside and developing basic motor skills, including balance, running, jumping and stair-climbing. The eyes also begin to team, meaning that the child uses both eyes to see an item and can focus on an item with both eyes.
Adults
People who learn good hand-eye coordination in their youth often bring those skills into their adult lives. As an adult, you will use hand-eye coordination more often than you realize, and often take it for granted. Hand-eye coordination lets you measure ingredients when you’re cooking dinner and push the appropriate buttons on the microwave. It allows you to select the appropriate keys when you are typing and put a key in the lock when you get home from work. And even if your hand-eye coordination is not as good as it could be, you can still practice to make it better.
Improving Hand-Eye Coordination
Whether you are a child or an adult, some activities can be done to improve your hand-eye coordination. Playing catch is a good way to work on your hand-eye coordination, and if you don’t have somebody to play catch with, you can throw the ball in the air and catch it yourself or bounce a tennis ball against a wall to catch it yourself. Video games can help improve hand-eye coordination by associating visual cues with hand movements; this is especially true for Nintendo Wii games, which are very motion-oriented. Sports such as pingpong, badminton or tennis can also have a strong impact on your hand-eye coordination.
Inhibitors
Vision impairments, including nearsightedness and farsightedness, can impede a person’s hand-eye coordination, as can loss of visual field, in which you do not have a full range of vision. Movement disorders such as ataxia--impaired muscular coordination, usually due to a brain or spinal cord disorder--will also hinder the development of a child’s hand-eye coordination, as well as the hand-eye coordination of an adult. Additionally, hand-eye coordination can be inhibited or completely destroyed by trauma to your brain’s parietal cortex.
