Motor, Sensory, and
Perceptual Development
 Motor Development
 Sensory and Perceptual Development
 Perceptual-Motor Coupling
Motor Development
Dynamic Systems View
 Seeks to explain how motor behaviors are assembled for
perceiving and acting.
 Motivation leads to new motor behavior; a convergence of:
 Nervous system development
 Body’s physical properties
 Child’s motivation to reach goal
 Environmental support for the skill
Motor Development
Reflexes
 Built-in reactions to stimuli:
 Govern newborn’s movements
 Genetically carried survival mechanisms
 Allow adaptation to environment
 Provides opportunity to learn
 Some disappear (e.g.: grasping),
some last throughout life
(e.g.: coughing)
Motor Development
Reflexes
Sucking reflex
Automatic sucking object
placed in newborn’s mouth
Rooting reflex
Reaction when infant’s cheek is
stroked or side of mouth touched
Moro reflex
Startle response in reaction to
sudden, intense noise or movement
Grasping reflex
Occurs when something touches
infant’s palms; infant response
is to grasp tightly
Motor Development
Gross Motor Skills
 Motor skills that involve large-muscle activities
(milestones achieved)
 Infancy
• Development of posture
• Locomotion and crawling
• Learning to walk
• Help of caregivers important; cultural
variation exists
• More skilled and mobile in second year
Motor Development
Milestones in Gross Motor Development
Motor Development
Gross Motor Skills
 Childhood
• Improved walking, running, jumping,
climbing, learn organized sports’ skills
• Positive and negative sport outcomes
• Movement smoother with age
 Adolescence - Skills continue to improve
 Adulthood
• Peak performance of most sports before 30
• Biological functions decline with age
Motor Development
Guidelines for Parents and Coaches
of Children in Sports
The Dos
– make sports fun
– mistakes are okay
– Allow questions,
show calm manner
– Respect child’s
participation
– Be positive role model
– Be supportive
The Don’ts
– Yell or scream at child
– Continue condemning
– Point out errors in front
of others
– Expect instant learning
– Expect child to be pro
– Make fun of child
– Compare child to other
– Make sports all work
Motor Development
Movement
and Aging
Motor Development
Fine Motor Skills
 Involves more finely tuned movements, such as finger
dexterity.
 Infancy: Reaching and grasping
• Size and shape of object matters
• Experience affects perceptions and vision
 Early Childhood: Pick up small objects
• Some difficulty building towers
• Age 5: hand, arm, fingers move together
Motor Development
Fine Motor Skills
 Childhood and adolescence:
• Writing and drawing skills emerge, improve
• Steadier at age 7; more precise movements
• By 10-12, can do quality crafts, master difficult
piece on musical instrument
 Adulthood:
• Speed may decline in middle and late adulthood, but most
use compensation strategies
• Older adults can still learn new motor tasks
Motor Development
Handedness
 Genetic inheritance proposed, unproven
 Preference of using one hand over other
 Right-handedness dominant in all cultures
 Right hand preference in thumb-sucking begins in the womb
 Head-turning preference in newborns
 Preference later leads to handedness
Motor Development
Handedness, the Brain,
and Cognitive Abilities
 95% of right-handed primarily process speech in left
hemisphere.
 Left handed:
 Are more likely to have reading problems
 Show more variation
 Have better spatial skills
 More common among mathematicians,
musicians, artists, and architects
Sensory and Perceptual Development
What Are Sensation and
Perception?
 Sensation:
 Occurs when information contacts sensory
receptors.
 Perception:
 Interpretation of sensation.
Sensory and Perceptual Development
The Ecological View
 People directly perceive information in the world around
them:
 Perception brings people in contact with the
environment to interact with it and adapt to it
 All objects have affordances; opportunities
for interaction offered by objects necessary
to perform activities
Sensory and Perceptual Development
Studying Infant Perception
 Visual preference method: To determine if infants can distinguish
between various stimuli.
 Habituation and Dishabituation:
 Habituation — decreased responsiveness to stimulus
 Dishabituation — recovery of habituated response
 Tracking — moving eyes and/or head to follow moving objects
 Videotape equipment, high-speed computers
Sensory and Perceptual Development
Infants’ Visual Perception
Visual Acuity
20/600 at birth, near adult levels
by 1 year
Color
Sees some colors by 2 months,
has preferences by 4 months
Perceiving Patterns
Prefer patterns at birth; face
scanning improves by 2 months
Depth Perception
Visual
Expectations
Developed by 7-8 months
Begins by 4 months; all know
visual cliff by 6-to-12 months
Sensory and Perceptual Development
Vision in Childhood
 Improved color detection, visual expectations, controlling eye
movements (for reading).
 Preschoolers may be farsighted.
 Signs of vision problems:
 Rubbing eyes, blinking, squinting.
 Irritability at games requiring distance vision.
 Closing one eye, tilting head to see, thrusting
head forward to see.
Sensory and Perceptual Development
Aging Vision In Adulthood
 Loss of Accommodation — presbyopia
 Decreased blood supply to eye — smaller visual field, increased
blind spot
 Slower dark adaptation, decline in motion sensitivity
 Declining color vision: greens, blues, vi
 Declining depth perception — problems with steps or curbs
Sensory and Perceptual Development
Glare
Vision
and
Aging
Sensory and Perceptual Development
Diseases of the Eye
 Cataracts — thickening eye lens that causes vision to
become cloudy, opaque, distorted
 Glaucoma — damage to optic nerve because of
pressure created by buildup of fluid in eye
 Macular degeneration — involves deterioration of
retina
Sensory and Perceptual Development
Hearing
Prenatal
• Can hear before birth
Infancy
• Improve sensitivity to soft sounds,
pitches • Ability to localize
Childhood
• Hearing usually fine
• Danger of otitis media
Adolescence • Most have excellent hearing
• Danger from loud music
Adulthood
• Few changes until middle adulthood
• Hearing impairment increases with age
Sensory and Perceptual Development
Hearing
• Fetus hears in last 2 months of pregnancy
• Newborns
– cannot hear soft sounds well
– display auditory preferences
– sensitive to human speech
• Infants less sensitive to sound pitch
• Most children’s hearing is inadequate
• Otitis Media: middle ear infection
Sensory and Perceptual Development
Hearing
• Adolescence
– Most have excellent hearing; loud sounds poses risks
• Adulthood
– Decline begins about age 40
– Males lose sensitivity to high-pitched sounds
sooner than females
– Gender differences may be due to occupation
– Treatment includes hearing aids
Sensory and Perceptual Development
Other Senses
Sense
Infants
Older Adults
Touch
and Pain
Newborns feel pain; by
6 mos., can coordinate
vision and touch
Less sensitive to
pain and touch in
lower extremities
Smell
Can differentiate odors
at birth; shows some
preferences
Loss of some
sense of smell
around age 60
Taste
May prefer sweet
tastes before birth;
likes salty at 4 months
Decline in taste
of begins in 60s