Motor Development Concepts

• Motor Development refers to the continuous, age-related process of change in movement, including individual, environmental, and task constraints

Motor Development vs Motor Learning

• Motor Development focuses on movement abilities that are related to age or development.
• Motor Learning focuses on movement abilities related to practice or experience.

Understanding Motor Development

• Motor Development represents a continuous process of change in functional capacity.
• It is related to age but not dependent on it.
• It involves sequential changes that are orderly and irreversible.

Longitudinal vs Cross-Sectional Research

• Longitudinal Research studies the same individual or cohort over a long period to measure task or behavior changes.
• Cross-Sectional Research infers developmental changes by observing individuals or cohorts at different ages.

Growth, Maturation, & Aging

• Physical Growth involves an increase in size or body mass due to an increase in already formed body parts as of 1972.
• Physiological Maturation involves a qualitative advance in biological makeup, focusing on biochemical composition rather than size alone, as of 1978.
• Aging is the process which leads to the loss of adaptability or full function and ultimately to death, as of 2005.

Universality & Individuality Paradox

• Universality suggests that members of a species tend to display similar developmental behaviors, following "stages" of development.
• Individuality recognizes that there are apparent differences between individuals, with convergent pathways to the same skill.

Theoretical Perspectives in Motor Development

• Maturational Perspective focuses on Normative Descriptive and Biomechanical Descriptive aspects.
• Information Processing Perspective.
• Ecological Perspective includes Perception-Action, Dynamical systems, and Newell's Model.

Theories and Motor Development

• Theories frame and describe the world around us, to make predictions about specific concepts/principals.

Maturational Perspective

• A primary factor for motor development is genetics/heredity according to the Maturational Perspective.
• Gesell and McGraw's research in the 1930's indicated a belief that the maturational perspective involves an innate process, with stages that will automatically occur.
• CNS development drives motor skill acquisition, and the environment has little influence.
• Individual differences in motor skill acquisition occur in the timing of reaching stages, and development ends at adulthood.

Normative Descriptive Period

• The Normative Descriptive Period focused on standardized norms for motor skills.
• It emphasized qualitative scores on tests and was less concerned about the process than maturationalists.
• It focused more on outcomes or performance at different ages than other factors.

Biomechanical Descriptive Period

• This period focused on Biomechanical descriptions of fundamental skills in children
• Jumping and running are examples of FMS (fundamental motor skills).
• Studies identified sequential improvements in motor skills.
• Outcomes focused, age-related descriptions of biomechanics were emphasized.
• How development occurred was not a focused concern.

Information Processing Perspective

• Movement functions like a computer program, where the brain operates as the computer, and motor skills are the program.
• Research by Schmit & Lee (1970/80s) found the following input -> process -> output movement concept.
• Input processing is compared to schemas.
• One central processor decides the output movement.
• Links perceptual-cognitive processes to the perceptual-motor processes.

Ecological Perspective

• Movement results from the interrelationships among the environment, individual, and task.

Perception-Action Approach

• The development of perception and movement occur together with the Perception-Action Approach.
• Perceiving the environment allows for understanding how the individual can function in their environment.
• The environment provides affordances to the individual.
• Individuals change and in turn, environments change with the individual.
• Body scaling matches the mover and the movement.
• In real time, perception does not demand complicated processing.

Dynamical Systems Approach

• Motor behavior is spontaneously self-organizing with the Dynamical System Approach researched beginning in the 1980's
• Movement emerges from interacting constraints of the body.
• Interacting constraints in the body act together to form a functional unit.
• There is no hardwired plan and too much memory is not needed.
• Rate limiters or rate controllers dictate motor skill development.

Rate Limiter vs Rate Controller

• A Rate Limiter is an individual constraint or system that delays the emergence of a motor skill.
• This is due to developing slower than other systems.
• A Rate Controller is an individual constraint which changes quicker than other systems, usually driving change due to developing.

Age & Lifestyle Choices

• Age is a rate controller of motor skills, which can lead to potential points of decline
• Physical activity is a means of reducing rate controllers.

Newell's Model

• Newell's Model (ecological approach) considers development due to multiple systems
• This means that it’s not just the CNS, like the maturation perspective suggests.
• Development is lifelong as biosystems are always changing.
• Its not only until puberty, like the maturation perspective suggests.
• Movement is self-organized and is, therefore, not a central processor/program (as the information processing perspective suggests.

Constraints

• A constraint is a characteristic of the individual, environment, or the task, that encourages and discourages movements.

Applying Newell’s Model

• When any of the three constraints change, the resulting movement also changes.
• Patterns of persistent interactions lead to changes in motor skills over time.
• Newell's Model is powerful for motor development, because it reflects a dynamic nature of motor changes over a period of time and considers each of the influences on motor development and their interaction.

Individual Constraints

• Individual constraints consist of a person's unique physical and mental characteristics.

Example of Individual Structural Constraint

• One example includes height or weight.

Example of Individual Functional Constraint

• One example includes motivation, mood, and attention

Environmental Constraints

• Environmental constraints consist of the world around us.
• Environmental constraints are global properties existing outside the body.
• Physical aspects such as temperature, humidity, air pressure, gravity, playing surfaces.
• Sociocultural aspects include cultural and societal norms and expectations, and subcultural norms.

Task Constraints

• Task constraints consist of the goals and the rule structure of a particular movement or activity.
• Goals such as obtaining points, destinations, or time limits.
• Rules consist of parameters in how one can arrive at a goal.
• Equipment can be defined as a rule or vary to increase or decrease difficulty.

Atypical Development & Clinical Application of Newell's

• Atypical Development can mean advanced, delayed, or differing norms, typically in regards to disability or disease.
• Disabilities affect the Individual constraint.
• Clinical Application involves modifying Environment or Task constraints.

Test your knowledge of motor development. Questions cover core concepts, research designs, and physiological maturation. Explore the universality and progression of motor skills.