Psychomotoric

development of
Infants
Veronika Fiamoli
Development - introduction
 Early child development
 Gross motor
 Fine motor
 Speech (language and hearing)
 Social ( emotional and behavioural)

 Development : result of a combination of

hereditary and environmental factors
Gross motor development (GMD)
 Shows rapid progression in the first 18 months
 Theimmobile infant becomes fully and independently
mobile
GMD – head control
 Newborn
 Head lag on pulling to sit
 Extension in ventral suspension

6 weeks
 Lifts
head on lying prone
 Moves head from side to side

3 months
 Holds head upright when held sitting
 Lifts head and arms extended
GMD – primitive reflexes
 Moro reflex
 Present at birth
 disappears around 2 months of age
 Sudden head extension causes symmetrical extension of
limbs followed by flection and cry
 Lay down the child on the pad, twitch the pad
 Bilateral absence
 means damage to the infant's central nervous system
 Unilateral absence
 an injury due to birth trauma such as a fractured clavicle or
injury to the brachial plexus
GMD – primitive reflexes
 Stepping reflex
 present at birth
 disappears at 6 weeks
 Infant held verticaly
 when the soles of their feet touch a flat surface they
will attempt to 'walk' by placing one foot in front of
the other
GMD – primitive reflexes
 Rooting reflex
 Birth → 4 months
 Head turns towards to a tactile
stimulus placed near the mouth

 Sucking reflex
 present at birth
 the child instinctively sucks at anything that touches
the roof of their mouth
GMD – primitive reflexes
 Grasp reflex
 appears at birth and persists until five or six months
of age
 fingers grasp an object placed on the palm

 Plantar reflex
 a normal reflex that involves plantar flexion of the
foot
GMD – primitive reflexes
 Asymetric neck reflex
 'fencing posture'

 1-4 months

 When the child's head is turned to the side, the arm

on that side will straighten and the opposite arm will
bend
GMD - sitting
5 months
 Able to roll from back to front at will
6 months
 An infant should sit without support

 Childnot sitting by 9 months

should be reffered for evalution
GMD – locomotor skills
 8-9m Crawling
 10 m cruising round the edge of furniture
 12 months 50% of infants are walking
independently
 Children not walking by 18 months must be
referred for evalution
GMD - advance motor skills
 20 months – children kick a ball
 3 years
 Jump from a bottom step
 Stand on one leg
 Ride a tricycle
4 years
 Hop on one leg
 Catch and throw a ball
GMD - advance motor skills
4 years
 Hop on one leg
 Go up and down stairs one leg at a time
 Ride a bike

5 years
 Can skip on both feet
Fine motor development (FMD)
 Dependent on good vision

 Assessed alongside visual development

Early visual alertness
 Newborns
 Fix and follow a near face or light moving across the
field of view
6 weeks
 Turn the head from side to side to follow an object
 3-4 months
 Spend lots of time wathing their hands
Early fine motor skills
 As the primitive grasp reflex starts to decrease
infants will start to reach for objects
 6 months
 Grip with the whole hand (palmar grasp)
 Hold objects with both hands and bang them
together
 Transfer objects between hands
Early fine motor skills
 10 months
 Pincer grip using thumb and first finger

 12 months
 Use index finger to point the objects
Advanced fine motor skill development
(FMSD)
 Assessed with pencil control and with building bricks
 FMSD - milestones
Age Pencil skills Brick building
14 months scribbles
2 years Buids 6 brick tower
2.5 years Copies a circle Bricks 8 –brick tower
or train with 4
carriages
3 years Draws a circle Makes bridge
4 years Draws a cross Makes steps
Draws a man with 2
to 4 parts besides
head
4.5 years Draws a square
5 years Draws a triangle
5 years - cut with scissors
Picture of 3 years old child
Picture of 4 years old child
Speech and language development
 Assessed in conjuncion with hearing
 Impared hearing will affect language development
Early singn of normal hearing and
vocalization
 Newborns
 Quitten to voices
 Startle to loud noises
6 weeks
 Respond to mother´s voice
 12 weeks
 Vocalize alone or when spoken to
 Begins to coo and laugh
Early language development
 6 months
 Use consonant monosylables „ba“ „da“
 8 months
 Use non specific two syllable babble
 „mama“ dada“
 13 months
 Use two-syllable words
 Understanding of other words (drink, no)
 18 months
 Vocabulary of 10 words
 Demostrate 6 parts of the body
Phrase and conversation development
 Becomesincreasingly complex with sentence
development in the 2nd year
 20months
 Begins to combine 2 words together
2 years
 3-word phrases (get me drink)
 vocabulary of 300 or more words
 uses pronouns
Phrase and conversation development
 2.5 years
 Refers to self by pronoun „I“
 Knows full name
 3 years
 Knows age and several colors
 Uses sentence of 6 words
 4 years
 Count 4 pennies, tells story
 5 years
 count 10 pennies
Early social development
6 weeks
 Starts smilling
 Becomes increasingly responsive socialy
8 months
 Separation anxiety
 Wariness of strangers
 10 months
 Begins to wave „good-bye“
Social and self-help skills development
8 months
 Begins to feed self using fingers
 12 months
 Drinks from a cup
 18 months
 Uses spoon to feed self
2 years
 Removes some clothes and will soon start to try
to dress self
Social and self-help skills evelopment
3 years
 Helps in dressing
 Unbuttons clothing
 Put on shoes
 Washes hands
4 years
 Goes to the toilet alone
5 years
 Dresses and undresses
 Able to tie shoelaces
Social dev. - Symbolic play
 24 months
 Starts to copy activities that they see around them
(feeding a doll, cleaning)
 In the 2nd year
 Play on their own , in „paralel“ with other children
 From 3 years
 Interactive play, taking turns, following simple rules
Social dev. - Symbolic play
4 years
 Plays with several children
 Role-playing
5 years
 Likes domestic role-playing
Social dev. – cognitive function
 Pre-school children
 Children are at the centre of their world
 „magical“ thinking and play with toys as if they were alive
 Junior school age
 Thoughts become operational
 Though processes are more practical and orderly
 Teenagers
 Formal operational thought
 Abstract thought
 Coplex reasoning