Mouse Tips for Working with Young Children
By Glenda Revelle, Ph.D

Introduction

Over many years of testing interactive products with young children, Sesame Workshop has found that, although the motor movement skills and spatial concepts necessary for effective mouse use may seem automatic to adults, they can often be quite challenging for young children. Our researchers have come up with some suggestions that often help children develop the basic components of mouse use.

Stages of Learning

Depending on the child’s age and level of motor development, working through these activities and stages of learning to use the mouse may take anywhere between a few minutes and a few months. For some children, it just takes some time for their motor development to reach a stage where mouse use comes easily to them. Many parents find that it can take a few weeks or even a few months for their preschool children to refine their skills to the point that they are able to use software on their own, without adult help.

Mouse Tips

1. Make Lots of Room for Mouse Movement

Clear a large space in front of the computer monitor. Although adults generally move the mouse using small finger or hand movements, young children often use whole arm movements, which require a lot of room! Mouse pads are often not big enough for the large movements children make, so use either the table or desk surface or a large vinyl place mat as a large mouse movement area.

2. Introduce the Mouse and its Movement

Put your child's hand on the mouse and then put your hand on top of the child’s hand to demonstrate how to hold and move the mouse. It is often natural for young children to want to "drive" the mouse the way they would drive a toy car, turning the mouse to change the direction of cursor movement on-screen. In addition, the fact that you sometimes need to pick the mouse up and reposition it is not intuitive to young children. They often just continue moving the mouse along one continuous path until it comes to the edge of the desk or runs into the monitor or some other obstacle. Use your hand on top of the child’s hand to model the kind of mouse movement that is required to effectively control the movement of the cursor on-screen.

3. Refining Your Child’s Skills

Work with your child on just controlling the movement of the mouse first, without worrying about clicking on anything yet. Point out the cursor on-screen, and direct your child’s attention to the way the cursor moves in response to the movement of the mouse. Once your child can move the mouse effectively without needing your constant assistance, try the activity in step four.

4. Mouse Fun

Place your finger on the screen and ask the child to try to move the cursor to your finger. When the cursor is near your finger, giggle and say "That Tickles!" or "You got me!" and place your finger in a new position to try again. Young children often enjoy this game, and it helps them master mouse movement skills. Start by placing your finger at the very top or bottom of the screen, or the very left or right edge of the screen, since it is more difficult for children to stop the cursor in the middle of the screen.

5. Clicking Objects On Screen

Clicking objects on-screen can often be very challenging for young children, for a variety of reasons. First, young children often have great difficulty stopping a movement, and they get very frustrated when they want to click on objects but can't get the cursor to stop on them.

If your child is having a lot of difficulty controlling mouse movement and getting the cursor to stop on a desired location, you may want to adjust the "Cursor Speed and Acceleration" settings on your computer until your child becomes more proficient at mouse movement. Here’s how to do this:

Windows

• Double click on the "Mouse" icon on the Control Panel
• Click on the "Motion" tab
• Move the "Speed Slider" all the way to "Slow"
• Click "No Acceleration"

Macintosh OS 9.x

• Click on the Control Panel and select "Mouse"
• Move the "Mouse Tracking" slider all the way to "Very Slow"
• Move the "Double-click Speed" all the way to the left where the indicator arrows are the farthest apart
• Close the window

 

Macintosh OS X

• Select "System Preferences" from the Dock
• Select "Keyboard and Mouse"
• Select the "Mouse" tab
• Set "Tracking Speed" to "Slow"
• Set "Double-click Speed" to "Slow"
• Quit "System Preferences"

For a proficient mouse user, these settings will provide frustratingly slow mouse movement, but they often help young children who are having difficulty with the motor skills necessary for mouse use

In addition, some young children have trouble pressing the mouse button without moving the mouse in the process. Some software activities will allow the Enter key or space bar on the keyboard to function in place of the mouse button for children who have difficulty with this. Otherwise, if your child continues to encounter difficulty and frustration in trying to click without moving the mouse, just ask your child to move the cursor to the desired object and let go of the mouse; then you can provide the click to select.

About the Author

Glenda Revelle, PhD, is a Research Scientist in the area of Interactive Media at Sesame Workshop. Ever since she received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan, Dr. Revelle has been creating and researching educational technology applications for young children. Dr. Revelle's ongoing research interests include designing and evaluating developmentally appropriate interfaces for children, documenting the effectiveness of various pedagogical techniques as implemented in interactive software, and exploring the educational potential of new and emerging technologies.

Prior to her current role, Dr.Revelle served as Senior Research Scientist at the University of Maryland's Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and Human-Computer Interaction Lab, and as VP for Interactive Product Development at Sesame Workshop. In addition, Dr. Revelle has served as an interactive education consultant to many prominent educational media companies.