MOTOR,SENSORY,
AND PERCEPTUAL
DEVELOPMENT
INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD
MOTOR
DEVELOPMENT
THE
DYNAMIC
SYSTEMS
VIEW
GROSS MOTOR
SKILLS
REFLEXES
FINE
MOTOR
SKILLS
MOTOR DEVELOPMENT:
THE DYNAMIC-SYSTEMS VIEW
Dynamic Systems Theory:
-Proposed by Esther Thelen that seeks to explain how infants
assemble motor skills for perceiving something in the
environment that motivates them to act and use their
perceptions to fine tune their movements
-Motivation leads to new motor behaviors, which are “tuned”
with repetition.
DYNAMIC SYSTEMS THEORY
-New motor behaviors are therefore the result of the body’s
physical properties, nervous system development, the goal
the child is motivated to reach, and environmental support.
• Universal milestones such as crawling, reaching and
walking are learned through this process of ADAPTATION
• Motor development is not a PASSIVE PROCESS;
Nature-Nurture
FOUR KEY ASPECTS
1) MOTOR DEVELOPMENT IS EMBODIED
- Opportunities for motor behavior involve current status of a child’s
body
2) MOTOR DEVELOPMENT IS EMBEDDED
- Environmental circumstances can facilitate or restrict possibilities for
motor behavior; infants has to be flexible
3) MOTOR DEVELOPMENT IS ENCULTURATED
- Social and cultural contexts influence motor behavior. Caregivers play
important roles
4) MOTOR DEVELOPMENT IS ENABLING
- Not isolated from other aspects of development
REFLEXES
Reflexes allow infants to respond adaptively to the
environment before they have had the opportunity to learn.
Rooting reflex: when an infant’s cheek is stroked or the side
of the mouth is touched, the infant turns its head and tries to
find something to suck.
Sucking reflex: occurs when infants suck an object placed in
their mouth.
• Enables the infant to get nourishment before it associates
a nipple with food.
REFLEXES
Moro reflex: a startle response to sudden, intense noise or
movement.
• Newborns arch their back, throw back their head, and
fling out their arms and legs, then rapidly close them.
Some reflexes persist throughout life.
• Coughing, sneezing, blinking, shivering, and yawning.
Some reflexes are incorporated into more complex voluntary actions.
• Grasping reflex: infants tightly grasp any object placed
in their palm.
GROSS MOTOR SKILLS
Motor skills that involve large-muscle activities, such as
moving one’s arms or walking; core strength, how strong
muscles are.
Figure 3 Milestones in Gross Motor Development
The horizontal red bars indicate the range in which most infants reach various milestones in
gross motor development.
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MOTOR DEVELOPMENT MILESTONES & VARIATIONS: 1ST YEAR
•
Timing of motor development milestones varies by
as much as two to four months.
• Experiences
can
accomplishments.
modify
• Infants develop new skills with
Caregiver guidance.
the
onset
of
GROSS MOTOR SKILLS : CHILDHOOD
● Maternal smoking during
last trimester of prenatal
development was associated
with late motor milestones.
● Breastfeeding was linked to
reaching the milestones
earlier.
GROSS MOTOR SKILLS
CHILDHOOD
●
●
●
As children move their legs with more confidence and carry themselves
more purposefully, moving around in the environment becomes more
automatic.
When mastered, these physical skills are a source of great pleasure and a
sense of accomplishment.
Participation can provide exercise opportunities to learn how to compete,
enhance self-esteem, persistence, and a setting for developing peer
relations and friendship.
FINE MOTOR SKILLS
-Motor skills that involve finely tuned
movements such as any activity that requires
finger dexterity, wrist and hand movements
INFANTS 2 TYPES of GRASP:
PALMAR- infants grips with the whole hand
PINCER GRIP- Developed by infants toward the
end of the year where they grasp small objects
with their thumb and forefinger
CHILDHOOD
● Fine motor skills improve.
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○
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Ability to pick up the tiniest object using pincer grip.
At age 5, hand, arm, and fingers all move together under better command
of the eye.
By age 6, they can hammer, paste, tie shoes and fasten clothes.
By age 7, children prefer pencil to a crayon for printing and reversal of
letters is less common.
By 8-10 , they use their hands independently with ease and precision.
By 12, they begin to show manipulative skills similar to the abilities of
adults.
*Children’s gross and fine motor skills are associated with cognitive
function
SENSORY & PERCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT
SENSATION
Occurs when information
interacts with SENSORY
RECEPTORS- EYES,
EARS,TONGUE,
NOSTRILS & SKIN
-
PERCEPTION
- Interpretation
of sensation
Examples: 1)sound waves that
reach the ear may either be
interpreted as music or noise
2) what the eyes can see can be
interpreted as a particular color,
pattern, shape
VISUAL PERCEPTION
VISUAL
HOW VISION CHANGES
PERCEPTUAL NARROWING
●
Color Vision
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○
●
At 4 weeks, infants can discriminate some colors.
Experience is necessary for color vision to develop normally.
Perceptual Constancy
○
○
Means sensory stimulation is changing but perception of the physical world remains
constant.
2 types of Constancy
■ Size Constancy - recognition that an object remains the same even through the retinal
image of the object changes as you move towards or away from the object.
●
Shape Constancy - recognition that an
object remains the same shape even its
orientation to us change
though its
VISUAL
●
Perception of Occluded Objects
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○
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●
Infants can only perceive what is visible and don’t perceive occluded objects.
Develop the ability briefly occluded moving objects (3-5 months)
Ability to track moving object that disappeared gradually behind an occluded partition,
disappeared abruptly or imploded. (5-9 months)
Depth Perception- ability to judge the relative distance of objects
VISUAL PERCEPTION: CHILDHOOD
- Children becomes increasingly
efficient in detecting the
boundaries between colors (ex:
red & orange) at 3-4 y/o
- @ 4-5 y/o their eye muscles are
usually developed enough that
they can move their eyes
efficiently across a series of
letter.
SIGNS OF POSSIBLE VISION
PROBLEMS:
1) Rubbing of the eyes
2)Blinking or squinting excessively
3) Appears irritable when playing
games that requires distance
4)Shutting or covering one eye and
tilting the head or thrusting it
forward when looking at something.
HEARING
HEARING
INFANCY- perception of sound’s loudness,
pitch and localization
FACT: At birth, infants cannot hear soft sounds
quite as well as adults
@ 3 months, perception of sounds improve,
although some aspects of loudness perception do
not reach adult levels until 5-10 y/o
AUDITORY ACUITY- how well one can hear.
Infants are less sensitive to PITCH
@ 6 months they are more proficient at
localizing sounds, detecting their origin
-By
2 years of age, considerable
improvement on their ability to
distinguish between sounds with
different pitches
-Most Children’s hearing is adequate,
but early hearing screening tests should
be conducted as early as infancy
OTHER SENSES: TOUCH & PAIN
● Infant’s senses of touch and motion may well be the best developed of
all
● Regular gentle tactile stimulation prenatally may have a positive
developmental outcomes.
● Kangaroo care was effective in reducing
neonatal pain.
OTHER SENSES: SMELL & TASTE
The senses of smell and taste have been studied much less than vision
& hearing.
Sense of smell & taste are intricately related infants & adults- if you
cannot smell, your taste sensitivity also significantly reduced.
SMELL
● Newborns appear to respond to all four of the
basic flavours.
● Babies as young as 1 week old can tell the difference between such
complex smells as personal body odours- can discriminate between
their mother’s and other women’s smells
● Can be quite true for baby’s who are breastfed & thus spend a lot of
time with their nose against their mother’s bare skin.
OTHER SENSES: SMELL & TASTE
TASTE
● Human newborns learn taste
prenatally through the amniotic
fluid and in the Breast milk after
birth.
MOTOR,SENSORY & PERCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT
Summary of the LESSON