Components of Motor Development
By Judith C. Cierman, P.T.
It's easy to take the developmental process for granted; most of us never think about how complicated growing up is. Newborns depend on their parents for everything; the goal of normal motor development is for these babies to become healthy, independent adults. That means the person can function well in each of these areas:
Gross motor - The ability to hold the body up against gravity and to move between positions.
Fine Motor - The ability to use the hands.
Self-help- The ability to take care of oneself. This includes feeding, dressing, hair care, bathing, and booking
Oral-motor - The ability to control the tongue, lips, and cheeks to talk and to bite, chew and swallow food.
How can my child's development be tested?
Here are two of many ways your child's development can be tested:
Developmental testing. New way to study development is to list all the activities that babies or children do in the order that they learn to do them. These lists are called "developmental scales" and can be used to test any baby. your baby is given many different tasks, and a developmental age is assigned by comparing your baby's skills with those of other children. The developmental age is the age when most babies can do all the tasks completed by the baby who was tested.
Children develop motor skills at different rates. Culture, the abilities of family members, and even your child's personality all influence how fast your child develops.
Reflex testing. Reflexes are movement patterns that always occur after the child is touched or moved in a specific way.; For example, your child's doctor may hold your child in the air like an airplane, with a hand under the tummy. This is to see if the Landau reflex is present. If it, your baby will lift the head and feet up in the air. If the reflex is absent, the head and legs will drop below the doctor's hand. This reflex should appear by the time your child is 6 month old.
Reflex testing helps determine how mature your child's nervous system is. A reflex that appears too early or stays too long can show problems in the brain's development.
What do the tests determine?
Developmental and reflex testing tell us if a child is developing at the same speed and order that normal children develop. But the tests cannot tell why your child develops in a certain way. Why can a 6-month-old sit and a 3-month-old not sit? Why can't babies talk until they are about a year old? The answers to these kinds of questions lie in understanding how children gain control and coordination of their own bodies.
What are the components of movement?
Here are the different things your child must control and coordinate in order to perform a motor skill or show a reflex:
Range of motion. Each body joint has a typical arc it should move through, stretching the muscles as it goes. your child's ability to do things will be decreased if a stiff joint keeps a body part from moving. For example, your child won't be able to sit up straight if the hips won't bend enough. A normal newborn has many limitations because of tight muscles, which must be stretched out as the baby develops. A newborn's hamstring muscles (on the back of the upper legs) are tight, but the muscles stretch as the child puts feet to mouth. By 10 months the baby can sit independently, with legs straight forward.
Sensation/perception. The ability to move is closely tied to our sensory systems. If an adult loses the feeling in a body part, the person usually stops using that part.
Children born with a sensory problem may be able to adapt, but they will not function the same as someone without the problem. Normal babies can see, hear, taste, and feel at birth, but they show definite improvement or refinement in these areas as they develop. For example, a young child may not be able to hold a small object and say what it is without looking at it. An older child develops this perceptual ability.
Strength. Muscle strength is the ability of the muscles to do work. Babies cannot even hold the weight of their limbs up against gravity. By doing exercises many times, the muscles gain strength so that the child can lift heavier and heavier objects.
Respiration. All normal babies are able to breathe at birth. The size of each breath, the rate of breathing, and the manner of breathing change, especially in the first year. At first, your baby uses the diaphragm (the flat muscle under the ribs) to take shallow, quick, irregular breaths. By the end of the first year, many other muscles assist the diaphragm, and your child takes deeper, slower breaths. This greater respiratory base allows the baby to do more activities for longer periods of time and to control breathing for speech.
Neuromotor control. To function normally, a person must be able to control the stiffness-the muscle tone-in the limbs and trunk. Sometimes, stiff muscles in the arms, legs, and body are necessary. At other times, they need to be limber. You need to stiffen your body more to walk a tightrope than to walk a line painted on the floor. At first, your baby lacks this stiffness control. Control comes to the upper body in the first four months. Later, the lower body gains control.
Your child must also be able to balance the muscles so the joins can bend or straighten, move to either side, and rotate. A young baby can just lift the head; as the muscles in the lower back gain control, the child is able to rise on the elbows. Later, the child is able to stand alone, to shift weight to one leg to take a step, and, finally, to twist the body. Now the child can learn to skip or throw a ball.
Motor development happens at different rate in different children, and children can change easily. The way you play with and handle your child can influence how your child develops. Your doctor or therapist can tell you how to help your child reach certain milestones more easily.
1990 by Communication Skill Builders, Inc.
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