You had to consciously think about environmental space and time interacting with your vehicle's space and time. Body in space issues begin as a conscious process but move into your subconscious as you become experienced.
Body in Space of the New Driver Analogy As a beginning driver, your Supplementary Motor Area (SMA) is busy processing the body in space of driving. You are consciously thinking about where the vehicle is in space. You have not automated this process yet, which means your cerebellum part of your brain is not yet in control. The beginning driver is so busy thinking about their increased body in space that they literally can not process consciously the higher level thoughts needed for safe driving, such as paying attention to the outside environment. Do they see the child playing basket ball two houses ahead? No. They literally do not see what is obvious to you the passenger because their conscious brain is paying attention to body in space, where the car is. That boy playing ball doesn't enter the young driver's consciousness because, their conscious brain space is already being used. When I was 16 and driving my first time downtown I ran a red light. My mom asked me calmly (it was late night so the streets were empty by the way!) "Lori - Did you see that red light you just ran?" My response was literally, no! I had no idea there was even a light there. I didn't see it. My conscious brain was too busy just being aware of where the car was to attend beyond the immediate issue, staying on the road.
Body In Space Issues in the Classroom Remember in yesterdays post that the Supplementary Motor Area (SMA) was the part of the brain that Autistic children tend to use for motor planning rather than the cerebellum. They use their conscious part of their brain for their body in space. When children are 'clumsy', accident prone, have poor body in space awareness, they must attend to their own body just to do the basics movements we do subconsciously. In the classroom, the teacher expects these children to attend to the lecture, paperwork, the activity on hand, but the child is already loaded with processing their own body in space. It takes them twice the effort to complete the assignment. And of course they won't pick up on all the information given either as part of the time they are focusing on their own body. Part of the time the teacher was talking, they moved and had to think about it, loosing focus on the lecture. When the child responds, "I didn't hear you!", maybe they didn't, literally! Some children will anchor themselves down by wrapping their feet around the chair legs, or they will lay their head on the desk to help them to attend, to take some of the body in space load off their brain. Body in space issues can interfere with learning.
In IM I see Body in Space Issues When I first learned of body in space issues as a teacher, I didn't undrestand it very well. But when I started seeing children in IM, it became blatantly obvious. I have children that are asked to hit their leg 50 times - easy, right? Except half way through, they totally miss their leg. They make such an error in judgement of time and space that they actually miss their leg, sometimes several times. Or doing the heel task, they just gradually walk away from the foot trigger. Multiple small errors in body in space keep adding up until they are no longer even able to know where their body is in relationship to the foot pad. They have to look and see, where is my foot and where is the pad. Another huge compensation is to minimize. Children will move as little as possible to prevent making these body in space errors. Foot tasks become just an inch or two step backwards, or tiny jerky claps. We work to modify these to increase their body in space awareness area. By the end, very few children are still making these big body in space errors. And, their body in space can now be processed more at a subconscious level, freeing up the conscious part of the brain to actually hear the teacher.
