Chapter 5

Things to think about before reading this Chapter

  • As you read Chapter 5, note examples that support Adolph and Berger’s claim that physical and motor development is centrally relevant to the study of psychological development.
  • Note the physical structures and motor abilities that have been shown to be present at the midpoint of a typical pregnancy (i.e., 20 weeks). What does this suggest about the nature of prenatal development in the remaining half of pregnancy?
  • How does the reassessment of neonatal reflexes presented by Adolph and Berger shed new light on the behavioral competencies of newborns?
  • Based upon your reading of Chapter 3, what similarities and differences do you observe in the emergence of perceptual and motor abilities during infancy? What role(s) does the physical world seem to play in the both areas of development?
  • How is reaching a “whole body movement”? Catalog the various physical structures and motor abilities involved in the development of reaching during infancy.

Chapter Outline

Introduction

Why Study Physical and Motor Development?

Chapter Overview

Moving before Birth: Fetal Growth and Behavior

Access to the Fetus

Fetal Growth

Stimulation from Outside

Fetal Movements

  • What Fetuses Move When
  • The Meaning and Function of Fetal Movements

Newborn Movements: Spontaneous, Reflexive, and Intentional

The Newborn Body

Spontaneous Movements and Stereotypies

Newborn Reflexes

  • Are Reflexes Really Reflexive?
  • Do Reflexes Really Disappear?

Moving the Eyes and Face: Looking, Emoting, Eating, and Speaking

Looking

Facial Gestures

Sucking, Swallowing, and Chewing

Speech

Triumph over Gravity: Controlling the Head and Torso

First the Head

Now the Body

Reaching for Objects

Stabilizing the Body in Preparation to Reach

Contact! Development of Visually Guided Reaching

  • Pre-reaching in neonates
  • Visually guided reaching
  • Catching
  • Feet Reaching

Grasping

From Object Exploration to Hand-Held Tool Use

Manual Exploration

Manual Tool Use

Independent Mobility

Moving in Place

Crawling

  • Quadrupedal Gait
  • Historical and Cultural Differences

Perceiving Affordances for Crawling

Upright Balance: Standing, Cruising, and Walking

Changing Body Proportions

Getting Upright

Walking

  • First Steps
  • Walking Proficiency
  • Natural Locomotion

Perceptual Control of Balance and Navigation

  • Gauging Risky Ground
  • Social Information

From Stair Climbing to Locomotor Tool Use

Up and Down

Cognition in Locomotion

  • Means-Ends Problem Solving
  • Whole Body Problem Solving

Conclusions

Suggested Readings

Adolph, K. E. (2000). Specificity of learning: Why infants fall over a veritable cliff. Psychological Science, 11, 290–295.

Adolph, K. E., Cole, W. G., Komati, M., Garciaguirre, J. S., Badaly, D., Lingeman, J. M., . . . Sotsky, R. B. (2012). How do you learn to walk? Thousands of steps and dozens of falls per day. Psychological Science, 23, 1387–1394.

Adolph, K. E., & Robinson, S. R. (2015). Motor development. In L. Liben & U. Muller (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental science (7th ed., Vol. 2 Cognitive processes, pp. 114–157). New York: Wiley.

Adolph, K. E., Karasik, L., & Tamis-LeMonda, C. S. (2009). Motor skills. In M. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of cross-cultural developmental science, Vol. 1, Domains of development across cultures (pp. 61–88). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Bertenthal, B. I., & Clifton, R. K. (1998). Perception and action. In D. Kuhn & R. S. Siegler (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (Vol. 2): Cognition, Perception, and Language, pp. 51–102). New York: Wiley.

Campos, J. J., Anderson, D. I., Barbu-Roth, M. A., Hubbard, E. M., Hertenstein, M. J., & Witherington, D. C. (2000). Travel broadens the mind. Infancy, 1, 149–219.

Clifton, R. K., Muir, D. W., Ashmead, D. H., & Clarkson, M. G. (1993). Is visually guided reaching in early infancy a myth? Child Development, 64, 1099–1110.

Gibson, E. J. (1988). Exploratory behavior in the development of perceiving, acting, and the acquisition of knowledge. Annual Review of Psychology, 39, 1–41.

Gibson, E. J., & Walk, R. D. (1960). The “visual cliff”. Scientific American, 202, 64–71.

Lampl, M., & Veldhuis, J. D. (1992). Saltation and stasis: A model of human growth. Science, 258, 801–803.

Lockman, J. J. (2000). A perception–action perspective on tool use development. Child Development, 71, 137–144.

McGraw, M. B. (1935). Growth: A study of Johnny and Jimmy. New York: Appleton-Century.

Needham, A., Barrett, T., & Peterman, K. (2002). A pick me up for infants’ exploratory skills: Early simulated experiences reaching for objects using “sticky” mittens enhances young infants’ object exploration skills. Infant Behavior and Development, 25, 279–295.

Thelen, E., Fisher, D. M., & Ridley-Johnson, R. (1984). The relationship between physical growth and a newborn reflex. Infant Behavior and Development, 7, 479–493.

vonHofsten, C. (2004). An action perspective on motor development. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 266–272.

Glossary

Affordance: Possibility for action, based on the fit between the physical properties of an animal and its environment.

Age norms: The mean or median age at which children demonstrate a skill, display a physical characteristic, or succeed on a task to some criterion.

Bimanual coordination: Intentional use of differential and complementary manual actions involving both hands to explore objects or assist with motor activity.

Cephalocaudal and proximodistal: A tendency for physical and motor development to progress from head to toe and from torso to extremities.

Compensatory motor response: When one movement requires a different movement, usually in the opposite direction, to correct the problems that arose (e.g., potential loss of balance) from the first movement.

Crawling: A variety of idiosyncratic forms of locomotion in a prone position in which four limbs are used in various combinations to locomote, sometimes with support of the chest and torso.

Cruising: A type of upright mobility in which infants move with support of objects (furniture, hand rails, window ledges, etc.).

Embedded movement: The functional outcome of motor actions is constrained by the physical environment in which movement takes place.

Embodied movement: The functional outcome of motor actions is constrained by the physical and biomechanical capabilities of the body.

Enculturated movement: Motor actions are culturally determined and constrained by caregivers’ expectations and practices.

Episodic growth: Brief periods of rapid body growth interspersed with longer periods of stasis during which no growth occurs, typically observable only in individual growth data.

Goal-directed reaching: Contacting a desired object whose location is specified visually or with sound.

Growth curve: Age and gender-referenced normative percentiles for height, weight, and other body measures, typically representing mathematically smoothed group data.

Haptic exploration: Exploration of objects or surfaces that uses touch and proprioception—such as feeling the smooth and deformable surface of a rubber ball while simultaneously getting information about arm, hand, and finger position and movement.

Moving room: Experimental apparatus that simulates visual information for forward-backward body sway with movement of the front and/or side walls while the floor and ceiling remain stationary.

Newborn reflexes: Movements such as stepping, sucking, and rooting displayed by newborns that disappear over the first few postnatal months; traditionally considered to be unintentional and automatic responses to stimuli, but can actually be deliberate and modifiable, and can persist over the first postnatal year.

Object manipulation: Hand-guided motor actions that involve goal-directed reaching, grasping, and manual exploratory movements such as coordinated looking, rotating, transferring, and fingering.

Optic flow: Visual information from the structure of light reflecting off surfaces in the environment that specifies the direction and velocity of locomotion as an organism moves through the environment.

Posture: Steady control of the head, torso, and limbs relative to the base of support that is an integral part of every motor action.

Posture-specific learning: Perceptual-motor learning that does not transfer from earlier developing postures to later developing postures.

Proprioception: Perception of the position and movements of the body.

Stereotypies: Spontaneous bouts of movements that appear rigid and repetitive in form and timing, but are actually variable and unique when measured with high-speed motion tracking devices.

Tool use: Using an object in typical or novel ways to achieve a desired goal, thereby augmenting the current state of motor abilities.

Tripod sitting: Sitting by propping the body upright with the hands.

Visual cliff: Experimental apparatus in which safety glass covers a tabletop. On one side, a checkerboard pattern flush against the surface gives the visual impression of a slight drop-off, and on the other side, the checkerboard pattern is on the floor far below, giving the visual impression of a large drop-off.

Visual proprioception: Visual information about body movements and body position that can mediate or override information arising from the muscles and joints.