Define gross-motor and fine-motor development and give examples of each. How do researchers today view the sequence of motor development?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: Gross-motor development refers to control over actions that help infants get around in the environment, such as crawling, standing, and walking. Fine-motor development has to do with smaller movements, such as reaching and grasping. Historically, researchers assumed that motor skills were separate, innate abilities that emerged in a fixed sequence governed by a built-in maturational timetable. This view has long been discredited. Rather, motor skills are interrelated. Each is a product of earlier motor attainments and a contributor to new ones. And children acquire motor skills in highly individual ways. Babies display such skills as rolling, sitting, crawling, and walking in diverse orders rather than in the sequence implied by motor norms. Further, there are large individual differences in rate of motor progress. A baby who is a late reacher will not necessarily be a late crawler or walker. We would be concerned about a child’s development only if many motor skills were seriously delayed.