Motor

Development
and Motor
Learning for
Children By:
Mariel Agcaoili
Chriane Aldamar
Luzelda May Altobar
BSNED 2A
 Objectives
After studying this chapter, you will be able to do the
following:
• Describe the normal process of motor development of
children ages 3 through 12.
• Discuss the concepts of motor learning that influence
children’s motor skill acquisition.
• Identify developmentally appropriate teaching practices
for motor skill attainment.
• Comprehend how regular physical activity benefits
children’s growth and development.
 Motor Development

• is defined as the changes that occur in

human movement across the life span.
• It can be understood as the way children
learn to use their bodies and their ability to
do the tasks they want to do.
 Motor Learning

• refers to a relatively permanent change in

performance as a result of practice or
experience.
• Through repeated observations of a child’s
performance, you will be able to infer whether
or not a skill has been learned or refined.
Physical Growth and
Motor Development
in Children
Growth Patterns
During childhood, height, weight,
and muscle mass steadily
increase, although the increases
are not as rapid as during
infancy.

Growth gradually slows The average weight

throughout childhood until the gain is about 4.5
adolescent growth spurt. pounds per year during
early childhood, with an
The annual height gain from average increase to 6.5
early childhood to puberty pounds per year from
decelerates from 2.75 inches age 6 to adolescence.
per year (at ages 3 to 5) to
Gender
Similarities
Boys and girls have similar amounts of
muscle and bone mass during preschool
and early primary grades, and they show a
similar gradual decrease in fatty tissue
through age 8.

At age of 12 both boys and girls have

greater limb growth than trunk growth.
Slight differences are apparent in that boys
tend to have longer legs and arms, and
girls tend to have greater hip and thigh
width.

Physical differences between boys and girls

 Cognitive Implications for
Motor Development
Between ages of 2 and 4, children learn to role-
play as they pretend play. A noticeable
characteristic of children ages of 2 and 4 is their
egocentrism.
Between ages 4 and 7, children have difficult time
thinking about more than one aspect of a motor
problem at a time.
Upper elementary school children, ages 7 to 11,
develop the ability to problem-solve on more than
Affective Implications for Motor Development
Play is an important factor in children’s socialization
and motor development.
During the early childhood years of 3 ½ to 4 ½ years of
age, children emerge from playing in solitary and begin
interacting with other children as play occurs.
When children enter kindergarten, the school becomes
a socializing factor that reinforces group interaction in
purposeful play activities.
Throughout the elementary years, children learn to
cooperate, compete and develop leadership skills.
 Motor
Development
Concepts
 Head to Toe
Development
Head to toe (cephalocaudal)
development refers to the way the upper
parts of the body develop, beginning with
the head, before the lower ones.
Because motor development occurs from
head to toe, the ability to do voluntary
movement begins at the head.
Infants at 1 month may display minimal
control of head and neck while in a supine
position.
By 5 months of age, infants in the same
Torso to Limb
Development
The proximodistal principle states that development
proceeds from the center of the body outward.
Because children gain control of their body first at the
center, large muscles skills, called gross motor skills.
Small muscle skills, called fine motor skills, require more
precise movements, typically at the hand and fingers, and
involve eye-hand coordination.
Differentiation is the progression of skill development
from gross movements of infants to more refined and
useful movements of children.
Integration is the coordination of muscle and sensory
systems as found when movements of hands and fingers
are integrated with the use of eyes to perform more
Factors Affecting Motor Development

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome- recreational drug

use, such as alcohol, cocaine, and tobacco can
affect both the mother and the developing
fetus. It may result in birth defects.
Abnormalities to the fetus may include
mental retardation, attention deficit disorder
with hyperactivity, and retarded physical
growth.
If mother’s diet is deficient in nutrients, it
may lead to low birth weight, premature
delivery, incomplete brain development,
 Variability among Children
Dynamical Systems Perspective- a current
theoretical perspective that examines the
individuality of movement control and coordination.
The term dynamic is used to indicate that change
in motor development occurs over time and is
unique to individual child.
 A basic premise of the dynamical systems
perspective is that motor development is
nonlinear and is constantly changing.
Three Subsystems that Affect Motor
Development
Development is uniquely influenced by factors within
the three subsystems:
1.The task refers to the specific movement, such as
walking or hand dribbling.
2. The individual encompasses the child and the child’s
unique qualities resulting from genetics and learning
experiences.
3. The environment includes factors that influence the
development of movement skills, such as opportunities
to practice, instruction, encouragement, and the
context to the environment itself.
 Stages of
Performance
Beginning
Level
• The first stage of performing a motor skill may be
thought of as the beginning stage.
• The learner is generally attempting to get an idea of
what the movement looks like and how to coordinate
the body to perform the skill.
• The movement of the learner is clumsy and awkward.
• Because the learner is attempting to understand the
movement, the learner also becomes overwhelmed by
the numerous visual stimuli that the environment
presents.
Hints for Teaching Students at the Beginning Level

• When appropriate, break the skill into parts and

introduce one part at a time.
• Provide demonstration to give children a visual
image.
• Provide maximum opportunities for each student
to practice with equipment.
• Focus immediate feedback on one critical element
at a time.
• Focus on the quality of the movement rather than
the product of the movement.
Intermediate
Level
• The second stage of performance, the intermediate
stage, is characterized by refinement of the
movement so that it is more consistent and has fewer
errors.
• At this stage children find movement to be less
mentally taxing because they focus less on doing the
skill and more on the outcome of their efforts.
• Children in this stage of performance may choose no
to progress beyond third stage if they perceived that
they have failed in their attempts to learn the new
skill.
 Hints for Teaching Students at the Intermediate Level

• Maintain a positive, safe learning environment.

• Provide practice opportunities that become progressively more
challenging.
• Vary practice activities often to maintain motivation.
• Give informative, immediate, and brief feedback.
• Provide authentic challenges that focus on small group
applications to movement task.
• Meet individual needs by modifying the task to meet the abilities
of each learner.
• Encourage children to analyze the critical elements of movement
tasks and begin to detect errors and identify corrections.
 Advanced Level

• In the final stage of the performance, the

skill has become the most authentic for
performer, and little conscious thought
occurs during execution of the skill.
• The performer is consistent from one
practice attempt to the next and is able to
detect and correct errors in his or her
movement.
 Hints for Teaching Students at the Advanced Level

• Provide opportunities to practice in game like

situations.
• Encourage students to practice offensive and defensive
tactics during game play.
• Provide specific, immediate feedback on critical
elements of the movement skill.
• Help the performe3r practice consistent movement
from one practice trial to the next.
• Encourage execution of movement skills with little
conscious thought.
Developmental Readiness
You may ask yourself a question like these to determine
the readiness of students for an activity.
 Have students mastered the prerequisite skills for the
activity being planned?
 Do students appear awkward and unable to repeat a
movement, or do students perform the skill with more
repetition of correct movement, or do students perform
the skill successfully in predictable situations?
 Does equipment control the student, or does the student
need to give complete attention to the challenge at hand,
or can the student perform the skill appropriately and
even combine it with other skills?
 Individual Variability

• Children also demonstrate individual

variability- each child’s unique level of
readiness to perform an activity
successfully.
• For children to succeed, it is important that
you recognize the variability among and
within your children and be prepared to
modify activities to meet your children at
Motor Learning
Concepts
Concept of Attention
Limits
• There is a limit to how many things
children can pay attention to at any given
time.
• When the limit is reached, children have
difficulty paying attention to everything
going on in their environment.
• Levels of excitement may also affect how
much attention a child will give to the task
at hand. There is an optimal level of
 Concept of Transfer
• Previous learning may influence new movement
experiences, and movement educators desire to
make a positive transfer of learning from
previous learning to new learning.
• Positive transfer occurs when previous learning
to use a skill in a different context or assist in
learning a new skill.
Concept of Transfer
As you design movement experiences for children, consider the
following guidelines outlined by Coker (2004) to promote
positive transfer.
 Analyze the new skill to see if components of the skill are
similar to previously learned skills. Make comparisons
throughout the instruction and practice time to draw attention
to similarities and facilitate cognitive understanding of the
new skill.
 Be sure that the previously learned skills that you wish to use
for positive transfer have been learned well. If the skills are
not well learned, children will not find your comparisons to be
meaningful or helpful.
 Use previous learning experiences to create a mental image to
Concept of Skill Demonstrations
• It creates a meaningful visual picture of the movement
requirements and how all the components of the skill
connect together.
• It is helpful to perform skill demonstrations at a normal
speed rather than slow motion so that children get a sense
of the timing of the motor skill.
• The benefit of having an unskilled child do the
demonstration is that other children will not only hear the
feedback given by the educator to the performer, but also
observe how the performer tries to correct the identified
errors.
• In addition, children become more motivated to try new
Concept of Task Progression
• Designing appropriate task progression is crucial
to all skill development.
• The environment can be described as the context
in which children do a skill or in which an object is
acted upon by the children.
• If the environment or the object does not change
while a child performs a skill, the skill is classified
as a closed motor skill.
• The other end of the classification is an open
motor skill that is performed in an unpredictable
environment where the object is in motion or
Concept of Feedback
• Feedback is information learners receive about
their performance and comes from sources
internal to the learner or external to the learner.
• Intrinsic feedback is information that children
will receive as they see the results of their
practice attempt.
• Congruent feedback gives children information
from an external source, such as the movement
educator, on their performance directly related
to what they were asked to do.
 Strategies to
Facilitate Learning
 Adapting to Children’s
Learning Styles
Learning styles are the unique preferences
all learners have for receiving and processing
new information.
 Learners take in and process new information
through different perceptual methods.
 Although all learners use all modes to some
extent, four types of learners have been
identified by their preferred mode of learning:
(1) the listener, (2) the thinker, (3) the
 Adapting to Children’s
Learning
Instructional strategies may beStyles
outlined to accommodate
the four learning modalities. The following suggestions may
help you begin to develop your strategies.
1. The listener prefers verbal descriptions, so provide clear,
concise discussions about the skills or activities to be
performed.
2. The thinker likes to analyze movement challenges, so it is
helpful to construct activities that include problem-
solving or critical thinking skills.
3. The kinesthetic learner likes to feel what the body should
do, so it is helpful to provide teaching aids to guide
exploratory movement.
Choosing Appropriate Practice Progressions

Individualized Exploration- when children

begin to learn new skills, they need maximum
opportunities to practice.
Partner Work with Children- partner work
may be introduced to challenge children with
the addition of a new dimension to the
environment.
 Choosing Appropriate Practice Progressions

Recommended Teaching Progressions for Successful Practice Opportunities

Individual Large-
Partn Small-sized
Exploration group
er group
cooperative
activity
activity
 Keeping Your Opportunities Developmentally Appropriate

The Council on Physical Education for Children (COPEC)

has published a position statement on appropriate practices
that should be evident in the elementary school movement
setting (NASPE 2000).
An important factor to consider about practices within the
learning environment is that children are not miniature
adults.
Children must be given opportunities to acquire and refine
basic movement skills at an early age in order to gain
access to a wide variety of physical activities as they grow
older.
If children begin to specialized in adult sports at an early
Thank
You!!