Study sheet: Psychomotor Development in Early Childhood

📋 Course Outline

1. Psychomotor Foundations and Maturation
2. Stability and Postural Control
3. Reflexes and Locomotor Development
4. Manipulation and Graphomotor Skills
5. Psychomotor Organization
6. Psychomotor Development in the Curriculum
7. Sensation and Perception
8. Educational Intervention Principles
9. Psychomotor Learning Activities

📖 1. Psychomotor Foundations and Maturation

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Psychomotor development : Ameijeiras, 2002 — the set of all changes occurring in a person's motor activity throughout life
• Psychomotricity : Pacheco, 2015 — studies the relationship between bodily movement, emotions, and cognitive processes

★ Must-know

• The three laws of motor maturation are:
  • the cephalocaudal law
  • the proximodistal law
  • the general-to-specific law

📌 Gross motor skills coordinate large muscle groups for balance, locomotion, and postural control, whereas fine motor skills use small muscle groups, especially in the hands and fingers, including hand-eye coordination.

Further detail

📌 Motor development depends on both physical-maturational factors and cognitive-relational factors involving the environment, learning, and social interaction.

💡 Memory Hook

Head to toe, center to extremities, broad to precise

📖 2. Stability and Postural Control

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Muscle tone : the slight tension present in a muscle at rest or during activity
• Postural control : allows children to maintain a posture and perform complex movements and is related to muscle tone

★ Must-know

📌 Hypertonia is excessive muscle tone, whereas hypotonia is insufficient muscle tone; newborns initially have excessive tone that progressively decreases.

• Balance depends on tonic-postural control, is regulated by the cerebellum and inner ear, begins developing during the first year, and continues evolving from 3 to 6 years.

Further detail

• Stability develops progressively from predominant primary reflexes at 0–3 months to sitting with help at 6–8 months, standing and taking steps at 9–12 months, improved stair climbing and jumping at 15–18 months, and fully developed postural and balance control at 24 months.

💡 Memory Hook

Tone and posture control → balance and stability

📖 3. Reflexes and Locomotor Development

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Reflexes : automatic movements that facilitate adaptation to the environment and constitute early stages of motor development

★ Must-know

• Locomotor development progresses from crawling-related floor movements to walking, running, jumping, and kicking, with dragging around 6 months, crawling around 8 months, assisted steps at 9–10 months, and independent running and jumping around 2 years.

Further detail

• The main reflex groups are:

  • postural and displacement reflexes
  • approach reflexes
  • defensive reflexes

• Running begins around 2 years and becomes more controlled by approximately 4 years, while stair climbing initially uses the same leg on each step and later alternates both legs.

💡 Memory Hook

Crawl, walk, run, jump

📖 4. Manipulation and Graphomotor Skills

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Graphomotricity : a psychomotor capacity that depends on body schema, spatial and temporal orientation, and lateralization

★ Must-know

• 🔄 Pencil grasp develops in this order:

  1. Palmar grasp at 1–2 years
  2. Digital pronate grasp at 2–3 years
  3. Four-finger grasp at 3–4 years
  4. Static tripod grasp at 4–5 years
  5. Dynamic tripod grasp at 5–6 years

• 🔄 Graphomotor development progresses through these stages:

  1. Uncontrolled scribbling at 16–18 to 20–24 months
  2. Controlled scribbling at 20–24 months to 3 years
  3. Named scribbling at 3–4 years
  4. The preschematic stage at 4–6 years

Further detail

• At around 8 months, infants correct their arm trajectory to reach an object and begin developing the inferior pincer grasp.

💡 Memory Hook

Palm, pronated fingers, four fingers, static tripod, dynamic tripod

📖 5. Psychomotor Organization

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Body schema : the child's image of their own body, first statically and later in movement, in relation to caregivers and the environment

★ Must-know

• 🔄 Ajuriaguerra identified these stages:

  1. Lived body from 0–3 years
  2. Perceived body from 3–7 years
  3. Represented body from 7 years onward

• 🔄 Spatial orientation develops through:

  1. Orientation
  2. Spatial organization
  3. Spatial structuring

📌 Lateralization is the functional predominance of one side of the body, whereas laterality is the process through which that predominance develops.

Further detail

• 🔄 Lateralization progresses through (Carcía Núñez et al., 2004):
  1. Indifferentiation at 0–2 years
  2. Alternation at 2–4 years
  3. Automation at 4–6 years

💡 Memory Hook

Body lived, body perceived, body represented

📖 6. Psychomotor Development in the Curriculum

★ Must-know

• The early-childhood curriculum contains three areas:

  • Growth in Harmony
  • Discovery and Exploration of the Environment
  • Communication and Representation of Reality

• The curriculum links psychomotricity to knowledge of the body, progressive autonomy in daily routines, and the acquisition of motor, rhythmic, and gestural skills.

📌 The Growth in Harmony area emphasizes body control, a suitable self-image, and respect for individual maturation rhythms.

Further detail

• Psychomotor evaluation includes progress in body knowledge, basic spatial notions, and the use of different expressive languages.

📖 7. Sensation and Perception

★ Must-know

📌 Sensation is the physiological process by which sensory organs detect internal and external stimuli, whereas perception is the cognitive process that organizes and interprets sensory information. — Ayres, 2005

• Perception depends on experience and is related to the development of memory, attention, and language.

• The proprioceptive system provides information about body position and movement in muscles and joints, the interoceptive system signals internal bodily states, and the exteroceptive system detects external stimuli through the senses.

Further detail

• Sensory and perceptual organization begins during the first months and progressively integrates different sensory systems into a coherent understanding of the world.

💡 Memory Hook

Sensation detects; perception interprets

📖 8. Educational Intervention Principles

★ Must-know

• Psychomotor intervention aims to educate sensory capacity, foster perception of the body schema, and promote representation through bodily language, drawing, and symbolic play.

📌 Psychomotor intervention should be progressive and adapted to the child's developmental level, prioritizing body knowledge, spatial exploration, motor coordination, postural control, lateralization, and spatial-temporal structuring.

📌 Psychomotor methodology should be globalized, experiential, playful, attentive to spontaneous classroom situations, and adapted to individual needs and interests.

Further detail

• The intervention integrates health and well-being, equality, inclusion, and quality learning in connection with the Sustainable Development Goals.

💡 Memory Hook

Competencies, knowledge, methodology, resources, activities

📖 9. Psychomotor Learning Activities

★ Must-know

• Psychomotor intervention uses:

  • motor materials
  • sensory materials
  • manipulable toys and objects
  • digital resources
  • spaces organized for free movement

• Examples of motor activities include: balance games, running and jumping activities, cutting, drawing, and block-building activities

📌 Psychomotor activities should be meaningful and connected with children's daily lives so that learning becomes more effective and lasting.

Further detail

• Rhythm and music activities develop rhythmic perception, coordination, and bodily expression through activities such as simple dances.

📊 Synthesis Tables

Motor and Psychomotor Capacities

Capacity	Main function	Examples
Stability	Control of the body in relation to gravity	Posture, balance, bending
Locomotion	Movement through the environment	Crawling, walking, running, jumping
Manipulation	Precise interaction with objects	Grasping, drawing, building
Psychomotor organization	Integration of motor, cognitive, and affective aspects	Body schema, spatial orientation, lateralization