What are your motor skills like?

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My motor skills? Pathetic. I can't ride a bicycle, nor did I ever really learn how to skate.

I HATED gym because I ws so uncoordinated in group sports, even though Mom got me to join the girl's softball team and field hockey teams in grade school.

I love walking, biking and some running, and I used to be good at serving the ball in badminton and volleyball. I just couldn't return it ever.

The really worst part of gym was that we got graded (do they still do that now?), so my B's (for trying) and C's in gym ruined my otherwise straight A average. I remember in college we had a horrid course called "Body Mechanics", for which we had a walking test, which consisted of us walking back and forth in our bra and panties (and this was 1962!) in front of a male photographer. And then we got graded on our posture and walking. I think I was so embarrassed I did worse than usual, but I got a D on that!
(Thinking back, the teacher was gay. She probably had a wonderful collection of films of girls in their undies!)

My motor skills stink. I've played video games ever since I was three and I'm very good at them, except for anything timed. I have trouble tieing my shoes and anything else, or untieing as well, I can't open plastic or anything else well, I can't button things or zip jackets well, I can't play sports well, except for swimming for enjoyment and defense in basketball, I can't run fast or as well as neurotypicals, I can catch things well sometimes, only as a reflex, and that's about it. Also, I can play volleyball well and I can't ride a bicycle, except for a stationary one and I can type pretty well, but not really fast, with both hands, thanks to a typing CD. I can ride a scooter fairly well, lifting one foot in the air as I ride instead of both feet on it.

I'm not very good on a bike, at all...I will be most likely to run into a tree or some other large, stationary object. the same with skateboards, rollerblades, rollerskates, and iceskates.


anything else...I'm not so bad. I was a cheerleader for 8 years...dance team..basketball, soccer, softball. (though softball all I was really good at was pitching.)


I tend to be clumsy...if someone is going to trip over nothing, it will be me...but I never felt I was lacking in the motor skills department.

you are now speaking to her uncoordinatedness the queen klutz herself. feel free to bow down, just ,for da love of god,dont trip me up!! !

It's a running joke that they don't let me play with sharp objects. I'm fine if it's something I'm concentrating on, or if it's an absolute automatic thing (like when I'm in the typing groove), but I am also an absolute klutz.

I would discribe myself as uncordinated. I often trip and fall over my own feet, possibly due to weak ankles. I tend to bump my hands on door ways and hallways when walking through them.

Gym class was a horrid experiance in school. The only thing I liked doing was rollerskating. IN elementary school we rollerskated every February. In Kindergarten the gym teacher was absent one day so my homeroom teacher said we couldn't rollerskate in gym and I kept asking why. She kept telling me because there is a subsitute. I want to know why you can't roller skate in gym class with a substitute teacher?

Running? I'm too slow. Kick ball? The ball would roll right by me. Floor hockey? Worst goalie in the class. Volleyball? Broke my finger. Cricket? Never understood the concept so allways looked like and idiot wondering of I should keep running. Football? I think I cried. Softball? I threw a bat (not on purpose), and never understood why I was out.

Bowling I did ok with. I still bowl occasionally and have my own bowling ball. (Not good at bowling but I look cool until I start, I have my own shoes too). I can ice skate a little. I skate around the rink trying not to fall or get run over.

I can ride a bike, learned how when I was 5. I still ride occasionally, last summer I road 11 miles one night!

My gross motor skills are, and have always been, poor. I do dance but I don't claim to be any good at it, my timing is also an issue there. I did learn how to ride a bike at about twelve or thirteen and I'm ok at that, mostly because I never learned to drive. My fine motor skills range from poor to great depending on the task and how well I learned to do it early on or at least that's what it seems like. I'm a maverick with a screwdriver or with handling minuscule electronic parts but my handwriting, at nearly twenty-four, looks like that of a seven year old except smaller.

OK, comparing myself to everyone else here, and your two sons.

1. I don't drool.
2. My fingers seem to be normal, they move relatively independently.
3. I can't really catch.
4. I CAN ride a bike
5. I CAN throw
6. I CAN aim rather well.
7. I CAN run.
8. I'm OK at golf.
9. BTW I seem to recall I learned to tie my shoes relatively late, but I KNOW it was before 7.
10. I DID hold my pen a bit weird for a while.
11. After having thought about it, I think I did have some trouble writing well earlier. I only recently tried to write fast. The quality IS sacrificed, but it is still better than most.
12. To this day, I won't be in sports with a ball, etc... unless it is alone, or where I have a level of comfort.

BTW about tortoises statements? I looked that up like only a week ago or so! I have always wondered about the corpus callosum! It starts to shrink, in EVERYONE, about the time I started going down hill. I, of course, HAD to check out the correlation! The part of the corpus callosum they found to be adversly affected in Autistics is, SURPRISE, the part associated with senses and motor control! That COULD explain some of the most common autistic traits, and one that I think is pretty much in everyone!

BTW I think the downhill slide was due to nutrition, environment, and experience. Maybe the corpus callosum isn't THAT responsible afterall.

Steve

I can safely say my motor skills are quite poor.

I cannot run well at all. Throughout my school years, I ALWAYS came in dead last in races although I almost came in second-to-last with a girl with arthritis once.

I cannot catch a ball. I remember my hand would be far from where it would land and with baseball, I would close my eyes and shield my face with my hand. Likewise, I am poor with throwing a ball. It doesn't go far (last time I tried it went around 5-20 feet) and it just went thud in the ground.

I wear loafers because I cannot tie shoes. I know the processes HOW to do it but I cannot synchronise my hands so that I can actually perform said function satisfactorily. In a similar vain, I find blowing my nose or making a bubble with bubble gum impossible tasks.

I cannot eyeball distances. I can give a VERY broad range (i.e 5-20 miles; 10-50 feet et.al.) while not giving a wrong estimate.

I have poor depth perception but I can drive a car, provided it has automatic transmission. I CANNOT drive a manual (i.e. stick-shift) transmission vehicle. I am a good driver though. I had to take a lot of lessons though. My hardest obstacle in learning to operate a motor vehicle was parking. My parking is satisfactory now. Other than that, i'm an excellent driver. I learned to drive at age 20 and got my drivers licence in November of 2001. I'm 25 years old now and have a totally clean record.

My handwriting is rather poor. I write very big and like a third-grader, at best.

Also, someone mentioned Tae Kwon Do. I was horrible at that. It was quite humiliating as well. I was 14 years old and I was losing in one-on-one match-ups with a literal 5-year-old! I could do the punches but no force in them.

I cannot walk in a straight line and I found out I either need to sit or walk. I cannot stand still lest I start to sway and possibly lose my balance.

I have always found skipping with a rope the hardest both as a kid and now. I just gave up in the end. I am just amazed that most 5 year old girls can do it so effortlessly. I cannot skip to save my life.

I know EXACTLY what you mean. I could never jump rope either. I just cannot do it. I would not jump at the right time and even tripped, or, at least, came close to tripping many times.

I could never skate either. My mom got me a pair of rollerskates when I was young (8 or 9). I was terrified when I was in them and was scared that I would get seriously hurt.

I also didn't like being put on people's shoulders when I was younger. I would go "whoaaaa, let me down!". I always was scared of heights. It was worse when I was younger though. I was terrified to be on a balcony or in the walkway of a floor that wasn't the ground floor. I had my mom or grand-ma hold me and I would be on the side of the wall. I was worried that the hand-rail would give way and I would fall to my death. Sometimes, if the walkway was narrow, I would walk with my back to the wall and more or less grab the wall. I'm not sure exactly how to describe it but I think this gives you an idea. I STILL don't look out of a balcony down on the ground below. The main reason (I think) now is that I wear eyeglasses and would be worried about my glasses falling down to the ground below.

Sorry for the rant!

Yeah, I can't skip rope or do jumping jacks either. I always felt it was due to a late start, and lack of interest.

STILL, it IS interesting that I was like the ONLY one in class that had these problems, and so many here do.

Steve

i busted my ass to learn how to run when when i was 12 because i just sick and tired of everyone being better than me . . . my balance sucks now that im 30 after many injuries. anything can be trained if you want it bad enough.

there is a saying buddhism: "it doesnt matter how slow you go as long as you dont stop"

My mom forced me to take Tae Kwon Do for several years. I think she thought it would help me make friends and also for weight control (I was on the chubby side). I hated the music they would play there it was always way to loud and while it may have gotten the NTs pumped up I wanted to run out the door. I also don't understand how it it supposed to develop self esteem or self contol. It did neither for me.

I do tend to drool if I don't watch myself if I'm doing something. I always gave the excuse that I'm a bit of a mouth breather because I have allergies, but my nose doesn't have to be stuffy for me to find myself dripping from the mouth... sometimes it's embarassing but if I'm feeling silly it's pretty entertaining too.

General motor skills (i.e. for sports - physical coordination) I don't have. I trip over my own feet - "accident-prone" is almost a euphemism in my case. I was in gymnastics for a while; I've always been quite flexible. And when we had to play softball in phys. ed., I wasn't really any good, but if I actually hit the ball, I could make it go pretty much as far as the boys could! skateboarding and snowboarding I took up in my early 20's, got okay at them... I liked them because you can do them on your own. I always hated and was never good at team sports.

My fingers also twitch, pinky and ring mostly; they kind of go from side to side if I try to hold my hands in front of me. And with fine motor skills, they're pretty good. I can play guitar, bass and taught myself some piano. Also I draw, a lifetime obsession that kind of comes and goes, so there again the fine motor skills come into play.