Development: Psychomotor

Introduction

Assessing psychomotor development is an important component in the interdisciplinary process of evaluating young children. Movement is an avenue through which infants and children interact with their environment, and is closely tied to and interrelated with both perceptual and emotional development. Hence, it may appear in the literature under the name of psychomotor. Nonetheless, this entry will refer to motor development, defined here as changes in the level of movement performance based on neurological and environmental influences.

This entry will address the assessment of motor development in children from birth to 6 years of age, relating only to observable, quantifiable development.

Historical Trends

In the early 1900s the trend was for psychological examination of relationships between cognitive abilities and motor abilities, represented, for the most part, by fine ...