Psycho Motor Skills[1]

Changes in motor skills as children go through infancy, childhood and adolescence

INTRODUCTION • Physical development refers to biological changes that children undergo as they age • Reflexes unlearned, organized involuntary responses that occur automatically, in the presence of certain stimuli • Motor skills skills that require an organism to utilize their skeletal muscles effectively in a goal directed manner

Infancy (0-24 months)

Infancy (0-24 months) • The first two weeks of life are termed the neonatal period and mark the transition from the womb to independent life. • Postmature - Infants who arrive 2 or more weeks after their due date • Premature-Infants who arrive before their due date

Full -term Premature

Infancy (0-24 months) • Initially, babies' movements are simply the uncontrolled, reflexive movements they are born with. Reflex

Stimulus/Action

Head turning.

allows a baby to turn his head if something such as a blanket or pillow is blocking his airflow.

Sucking

In response to inserting a finger or nipple into its mouth, the infant begins rhythmically sucking.

Rooting

In response to stroking its cheek, the infant turns its head toward the touch and attempts to suck.

Infancy (0-24 months) • Most babies weigh between 5 1/2 and 10 pounds, and are between 18 and 22 inches long. Male babies are generally slightly heavier and longer than female babies. • Their hearing is fairly good and they react differently to different odors and tastes. (Santrock,1995)

Infancy (0-24 months) • Can see fairly well up to about 12 inches from their eyes, but the world farther away is probably a blur to them. (Salapatek, 1977) • It was previously believed that the skin sense of neonates were poorly developed, but it is now clear that they are quite sensitive to touch. (Santrock, 1995) • At birth, the neonate's brain weighs only 25 percent of that of an adult brain. By the end of the second year, the brain weighs about 80 percent; by puberty, it weighs nearly 100 percent of that of an adult

Infancy (0-24 months) • Physical growth is rapid during the first 2 years. An infant's birth weight generally doubles by 6 months and triples by the infant's first birthday. • A baby grows between 10 and 12 inches in length (or height) • From 2 weeks to 2 months, rapid change takes place in all sense, too. Clear vision increase to 12 feet during this period. By 6 months of age, their vision is 20/20 which is normal.

Infancy (0-24 months) •

Over time, infants learn to move their body parts voluntarily to perform both gross (large) and fine (small) motor skills.

• Gross motor skills are the ability to make movements which use the large muscles in the arms, legs, and torso. • Fine motor refers to movements that require a high degree of control and precision.

Gross motor skill Age 0 month 1 month 2 months 3 months 4 months 6 months 7 months 8 months 9 months 10 months 11 months 12 months 13 months 14 months 15 months

Motor skills •Fetal posture •Chin up, •Chest up •Reach and miss, begin to hold their bodies in symmetry •Sit with support •Sit on lap, grasp object, sitting up with help or lying on their belly. •Sit on high chair, grasp dangling object; moving themselves in particular direction. •Sit alone •Stand with help •Stand holding furniture •Creep •Walk when led •Pull to stand by furniture •Climb stair steps •Walk alone

Fine motor skills Age (months) 3

3.5 8.5 11 14 16 24

Skills •Open hand prominently •Babies begin holding objects between their palm and their enclosed fingers in a clumsy ulna grasp. •Grasps rattle •Grasps with thumb and finger •Most babies can pick up and drink from a cup. •Holds crayon adaptively •Can place smaller pellet-sized objects •Builds tower of two cubes •Places pegs in board •Imitates strokes on paper •Toddlers can use their hands with more dexterity as they can unwrap birthday presents or do simple puzzles.

Infancy (0-24 months) •

Robert Malina (1982) suggests that we divide the wide range of motor skills into three rough groups : – – –

locomotor patterns, such as walking, running, jumping, hopping and skipping. Nonlocomotor patterns, such as pushing, pulling, and bending. Manipulative skills, such as grasping, throwing, catching, kicking, and other actions involving receiving and moving objects.

Age in months

Locomotor skills

Nonlocomotor skills

Manipulative skills

•1

• Stepping reflex

•Lifts head slightly; follows slowly moving objects with eyes.

•Holds object if placed in hand.

•Lift head up to go degrees when lying on the stomach.

•Begins to swipe at objects in sight

•2-3

•4-6

• Rolls over; sit with some support; moves on

•7-9

•Holds head erect in sitting.

hands and knees

•Transfers objects from one hand to the other.

• Sits without support; •10-12

crawl • Pulls himself/herself

•Squats and stoops •Some signs of hand preference; grasps a spoon across palm but has poor aim of food to mouth.

standing; walks grasping •13-18 furniture; then walk without help •Walks backward and

•Reaches for and grasps objects.

•Rolls ball to adult

•Stacks two blocks; puts objects into small containers and dumps them.

Infancy (0-24 months) • In these early months of life, babies seem pleased to repeat their limited repertoire of motor skills again and again. • Such repeated patterns become particularly prominent at about 6 or 7 months of age. These repeated movements do not seem to be totally voluntary or coordinated, but they also do not appear to be random.

Motor development

Children (age 3 to 12 years old)

• Although it seems motor skills miraculously appear and develop on their own, the fact is, and children who don’t receive instruction and practice in this area will develop only marginal— as opposed to maximal— ability to use their bodies (Rae Pica, 2004).

Age 3 and 4  By the age of 3, children can walk or run in a straight line and leap off the ground with both feet, although they can clear only very small (8- to 10- inch) objects in a single bound and cannot easily turn or stop while running.  Four-year-olds can skip, hop on one foot, catch a large ball with both hands, and run much farther and faster than they could one year earlier (Corbin, 1973).

Age 5, 6 and 7 • By age 5, children becoming rather graceful; like adults, they pump their arms when they run, and their balance has improved to the point that some of them can learn to ride a bicycle. • Despite (or perhaps because of) the rapid progress they are making, young children often overestimate the physical feats they can perform, and the bolder ones may end up with bruises, burns, cuts, scrapes, and an assortment of other injuries (Plumert, 1995).

Age 8 and 9 • By the age of 8 or 9, children can use household tools like screwdrivers pretty well. They have also become skilled performers in video games which require much of the eye-hand coordination skills. • Older children generally display quicker reaction times compared to younger children (Wilkinson & Allison, 1989), which helps to explain why they usually beats their younger opponents in action games such as table tennis and badminton.

• With each passing year, school-age children perform better. • Children improve at these large-muscle activities because they are growing larger and stronger. At the meanwhile, they are also finetuning their motor skills. • Initially, children can only throw with their arms whereas adolescents are able to coordinate arm, shoulder and leg movements to put the force of their bodies behind their throws. • That is why older children can throw farther than younger children can not solely due to their physical advantages, but they also use more refined and efficient techniques of movement (Galahue, 1989).

Specific fine motor skills • Visual Motor Skills -putting together puzzles and building with construction toys such as blocks and leggos. • Grapho-Motor Skills -also visual motor skills.

Children’s drawings • has been widely studied, especially by Rhonda Kellogg • The first symbols-upright cross, the diagonal cross, the rectangle, and other common forms • 3 years old-form face shapes • At 4 to 5 years old-the child draws a human form with arms and legs, eventually the child adds a trunk and clothes • At age of 5-pictorials in their art, such as houses, animals and boats

Contributing Factors:

• Attention skill • Sensory integration

Sensory integration • • • • • • •

Touch Smell Taste Sight Hearing Position in Space Movement

HANDEDNESS Preference for using one hand rather than another in performing a variety of motor functions.  Many children develop a preference for use of the right hand as the left hemisphere of the brain assumes dominance and control over motor functions.

Handedness - 2 Handedness develops slowly in children and is not always consistent in the early years. Before 2 years, most children show considerable flexibility in shifting from one hand to another.

Handedness – 3 By age 4, most children show a preference for use of the right hand.  Left-handed people are righthemisphere dominant: the side of the brain that controls such skills as art, drama, sculpture, and spatial relations. It is most likely that handedness is caused by a combination genetic, prenatal, and learning factor.

OBESITY IN CHILDHOOD  Obesity can become a health problem as children get older. Presents a future health hazard.  Due to several factors, including heredity. Obese children tend to be born with more and larger fat cells than slim children.

Obesity - 2  Another factor is eating habits. Obese children do not necessarily eat more food, but they prefer calorific foods high in fats, starches, sugars.  One major problem that contributes to obesity is the habit of eating junk foodpotato chips, sweets, and sodas-which are high in calories from fats and sugars, but low in nutrition.

Ctd…  Activity level affects obesity. Obese children tend to be less active, which reduces metabolism and the amount of food burned up, thus increasing the fat accumulation.  Parents must try to prevent it in the first place by regulating the diet and eating habits of children while they are young. They should serve nutritious foods, low in calories from fat, starches, and sugars.  Parents should not put their obese children on crash diets. There are two ways to help children reduce their weight:  i) to help them change their eating habits.  ii)to increase children’s physical activity so they will use up more calories.

MALNUTRITION AMONG CHILDREN • Inanition, or starvation, also called marasmus, results from inadequate intake of all nutrients: proteins, calories, vitamins, and minerals. • Marasmic infants show gross weight loss, growth retardation, and wasting of subcutaneous fat and muscle. • Vital organs lose weight and function. The heart, liver, kidney, and intestines are affected. Blood pressure drops. The endocrine system is disturbed. Energy capacity is diminished because of muscle destruction and anemia. Hypothermia may contribute to death.

Malnutrition • Research reveals that an inadequate diet prenatally and after birth may result in retarded brain development and mental retardation. • Kwashiorkor results when children have a protein deficiency even though the calorie intake is sufficient. • Kwashiorkor is characterized by generalized edema, flaky dermatosis, thinning and decolouration of the hair, enlarged fatty liver, a protruding belly due to the liver enlargement and water retention, finally will retarded growth.

Importance of motor development • Development of gross and fine motor skills can affect a child. These skills help a child to perform better academically and physically. • Children acquire and develop locomotor (traveling), nonlocomotor (stationary), and manipulative (object-control) skills they can use for current and future physical activity.

The Theory of Critical Period • This theory contends that nature provides certain times when the child’s experience can have the greatest impact on various aspects of her development. • For most basic motor skills, the critical period — the time during which experience can have the most influence — seems to extend from the prenatal stage to about age five (Rae Pica, 2004). • The child will miss out on the opportunity to achieve the best possible motor skill development if they start off late as the neurons will lose plasticity over time.

Development over the years Age

Gross Motor Skills Acquired

3

Walk or run in a straight line and leap off ground with both feet

4

Hop, skip on one foot, catch a big ball with both hands

5

Pump their arms when they run, learn to ride a bicycle

6 and above

Improve on the coordination of the whole body to stay balance in games and sports

Development over the years Age

Fine Motor Skills Acquired

3

Eating clumsily

4

Copy simple designs, button shirt

5

Cut a straight line with scissors and copying alphabets and numbers using crayon

8/9

Able to use household tools pretty well