Grouth and Motor Development

 

Introduction 

Motor development is the process through which a chaild acquires movement patterns and skill. It is a continuous process of modification that involves the interactions of several factors. All of these occur in the context of the physical and sociocultural environments within which a chaild is reared. Environmental experiences interact with growth and maturation to influence motor development and proficiency.

Definition

Subdiscipline of motor behaviour that examines the effects of age on the learning and control of motor skills.

• The process by which a child acquires movement patterns and skills.
• Characterized by a continuous modification based upon the interaction of:

1. the process of neuromuscular maturation which is probably genetically regulated;
2. the growth and maturity characteristic of the child;
3. the residual effect of prior motor experiences.

Category of Motor Activities

• Gross : movement of the entire body or msjor segment and controlled by large muscles (walking, hopping, jumping)
• Fine : movement requiring precision and dexterity and controlled by small muscles.
• Many motor tasks incorporate both fine and gross motor elements.

Movement Awareness

• Prerequisite of efficient movement
• Specific elements of the perceptual-motor patterns;

1. body awareness
2. spatial awareness
3. directional
4. vestibular
5. temporal
6. auditory
7. visual
8. tactile

Principles of Motor Development

Development proceeds from the head downward

• the cephalocaudal principle.

Development proceeds from the centre of the body outward

• the proximodistal principle

Development depends on maturation and learning

• children must mature to a certain point before they can progress to new skills
• a stimulating environment and varied experiencess allow a child to develop to his or her potential

Growth and development is a continuous process.

• one stage of development lays the founation for the next stage of development.

Growth and development proceed from the general to specific.

• growth occurs from large muscle movements to more refined (smaller) muscle movements

There are individual rates of growth and development.

• although the sequence of motor development is fairly uniform across children, differences may exist individually in the rate at which motor skills develop

Phases of Motor Behaviour

What are developmental milestones?

Developmental milestones are a set of functional skills or age-specific tasks that most children can do at a certain age range. Although each milestone has an age level, the actual age when a normally developing child reaches thet milestone can very quite a bit.

• The development of a child’s motor behaviour is a sequential process.
• This development starts with simple reflexes to the learning of postural movements, to locomotor responses and finally, fine manipulative movements.
• Generally there are four phases involved in the development of motor behaviour:

1. Phase 1 – from reflexes to rudimentary (sitting, crawling, creeping. Standing and walking.
2. Phase 2 – fundamental skills
3. Phase 3 – more specific movement skills will appear, fundamental skills become more refined and will appear more fluid and are more automatic.
4. Phase 4 – the specific movements develop further and can be called specialized.

Table : Phases of Motor Behaviour

Developmental Stage (Approximate Age Range)	Phase	Characteristic Psychomotor Cehaviours
Prenatal –Infancy (-5 mth – 1 year) Infancy (birth to 2 years)	Reflexive Rudimentary	Initial and extension, postural adjustments. Rolling, sitting, crawling, creeping, standing, walking, grasping.
Early Childhood (8 – 12 years) Adolescence Adulthood (12 to adult years)	Fundamental Movement (and perceptual efficiency) Specialized	Locomotor skills, nonlocomotor skills, manipulative skills, molvement awar eness. Recreational or competitive level activities.

(From Gabbard, C. 1988)

Stage of Human Movement

• Within skill development 
• Characteristics of stages:

1. Hierachically qualitative – something new, never before seen, occurs in behaviour.
2. Transformation from previous stage into subsequent stage.
3. Intransitive – order cannot be changed; universal stage sequence but own rate of development.
4. Transitional period – developmental lags between the behaviours of a stage (plateaus).
5. Relative periods of stability with periods of instability.

Childhood Skill Development

• Early childhood years – competence in performing motor skills such as throwing, catching, jimping etc begins to develop.
• Transitional motor skills are fundamental motor skills performed in various combinations and with variations.
• The transition from fundamental skills to performing variations of them is not smooth for all chaildren and is not automatic.
• Elementary school years (ages 6 – 10) : 60% of 6 years old boys and girls were able to perform only two skills at the mature level.
• Refinement of fundamental motor skills.
• Boys and girls use basic motor skills and many variations of them in games and situations of increasing complexity.
• Quantitative performances of chaildren on all skills such as throwing, running and jumping shows a relatively linear increase as age increase.