Motor Development - Development of Motor Skills

Motor skills help us move, hold things, write, build, and do many everyday tasks. These skills develop through both our genes (heredity/maturation) and what we learn from our surroundings (environment). All children start with basic movement patterns, but differences appear depending on what they experience and practice.

1. How Motor Skills Develop

• All children learn to move in similar steps and order.
• First, they get basic skills: grabbing, crawling, and holding things.
• Later, more difficult skills grow from these simple movements, like writing or building with blocks.

2. Role of Heredity and Environment

• At first, genetics (maturation) is important in learning basic movements.
• As children grow, the environment matters more.
• For example:
• If a child gets pencils, a phone, colors, or toys, they practice using them and develop these motor skills.
• If they don’t have these things, they can’t learn those skills.

3. Role of Parents

• Parents help by giving children things to play with and encouraging them to use new objects.
• Children read, write, color, hold a phone, or build with cubes—if parents make these things available.
• If not, children cannot learn these motor skills.

4. Environment Sets the Limit

• What’s in the environment sets what motor skills children can learn.
• If fun things are not provided (a phone, a typewriter, blocks), children miss out.
• If many tools and toys are available, children build more skills.

5. Differences Among Children

• In nursery school, every child shows different motor skills during play.
• These differences are mainly because of what they have practiced and used at home or school.

• In some cultures (like the Hopi Indians), infants have restricted movement, but still walk at about the same age as others.
• Gesell’s twin study shows that children who miss some practice still “catch up” later when given the chance.

• Children’s motor skills depend on both genes and environment.
• More practice and more things to play with = more motor skills learned.
• Parents and opportunities matter a lot.
• Every child develops motor skills in their own way, based on what’s available.