The Wonder Years
Helping Your Baby and Young Child Successfully Negotiate The Major Developmental Milestones
Chapter One
Movement
Understanding the Stages
Motor Skills are those that require the coordinated movement of a muscle or a group of muscles. Gross motor movements are the large movements of the limbs and body, which are associated with crawling, running, and jumping. Initially, however, they are required to support your baby’s body—enabling her to hold her head up steadily and sit without support–rather than moving it.
Gross motor skills depend on the strength of the large muscles that support and move the neck, back, arms, shoulders and legs. In addition, the brain has to mature so that it is able to send the appropriate messages to these muscles. Fine motor skills also rely on muscle strength and messages from the brain but they produce more delicate movements, such as picking up a small object with the finger and thumb.
In early life, the parts of the brain that control ad coordinate movement are immature. They gradually develop in a h ...
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