Gross Motor Skills

 Gross Motor Skills

Ask any parents about their baby, and sooner or later you are likely to hear about one or more motor milestone, such as "Cassandra just learned to crawl,' "Jesse is finally sitting alone." or "Angela look her first step last week." It is no wonder that parents proudly announce such milestones. They relied the transformation of babies from being unable to lift their heads to being able to grab things oil the grocery store shell. 10 chase a cat. and to participate actively in the family's social life. These milestones are examples of gross motor skills Gross motor skills involve large-muscle activities, such as moving one's arms and walking. Mow do gross motor skills develop through the life span?

The Development Of Posture Gross motor skills, as well as many other activities, require postural control (Thelen. 1995. 2000; Thelen & Smith. 2006). Infants need to control their heads to stabilize their gaze and to track moving objects. They also must have strength and balance in their legs to walk

Newborn infants cannot voluntarily control their posture. Within a few weeks though, they can hold their heads erect, and soon they can lift their heads while prone. By 2 months of age. babies can sit while supported on a lap or an infant seat, but silting independently is not accomplished until A or 7 months of age. Standing also develops gradually across the first year of life By about 8 months of age. Infants usually lean to pull themselves up and hold on to a chair and they often can stand alone by about 10 to 12 months of age.

In Thelen's (1995. 2000» view, posture is more than just holding still and straight though Posture, like other movements, is a dynamic process that is linked with several sensory modalities; proprioception from the skin, joints, and muscles; vestibular organs in the inner ear that regulate balance and equilibrium; and cue from vision and hearing.

Locomotion and postural control are closely linked especially in walking upright. Walking upright requires being able both to balance on one leg as the other is swung forward shift the weight from one leg to the other.

Although infants usually team to walk about their first birthday, the neural pathways that control the leg alternation component of walking are in place from i very early age, possibly even in birth or before Infants engage in frequent alternating kicking movements throughout the first six months of like when they are lying on their backs. Also when 1- to 2-momh-olds are given support with their feet in contact with a minimized treadmill, they show well-coordinated, alternating steps.

If infants can produce forward stepping movements so early, why does il lake them so long to learnt to walk? The key skills in learning to walk appear to be stabilizing balance on one leg long enough to swing the other forward and shifting the weight without falling. This is a difficult biomechanical problem to solve, and it takes infants about a year to do It.