For students who are interested in sports but have significant delays in gross motor ability, teachers can find useful roles related to athletics, such as managers, assistant coaches, sports reporters, and statisticians. Teachers of music, woodworking, art, and other such areas may exert a very positive influence on the lives of children with disappointing motor performance. If a teacher can emerge as a mentor and a supporter of the child, great things can be accomplished. This is especially critical in the case of a child who is deprived motorically and is having trouble in all academic subjects. Finding a successful mode of motor output for taht student can be dramatically therapeutic.
Teachers can help children who are developing a fine motor skill to document their progress.
Students should accumulate a dated portfolio of all their work. Occupational or physical therapy may benefit children whose motor problems are substantial. If such services are available in a school, children may work in a group setting, sometimes called activity groups. Listen to audio clips from Dr. Levine's cassette series, Reaching Minds. Dr. Mel Levine is a professor of pediatrics, the director of the Center for Development and Learning at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, and the founder and president of All Kinds of Minds, a non- profit institute dedicated to the understanding of differences in learning.