Development: Psychomotor

From Motor Abilities Assessment to Motor Skills Assessment

In the 1920s, assessments focused mainly on motor abilities and capacities were expressed in a single composite score.

From the 1940s, assessments began focusing more on direct measures of motor skills. Gesell and Bayley laid the foundations for the assessment of motor skills in infants and young children from the early 1900s and into the 1950s.

From Product-Oriented Assessment to Process-Oriented Assessment

In the field of assessing fundamental motor skills, the era between the 1930s to the 1960s was dominated by product-oriented assessments. The 1970s saw a shift to more process-oriented assessments, pioneered by the work of Seefeldt and Hubenstricker (1982), and on fundamental motor patterns development.

From Neuromaturational Hierarchical Frameworks to Functional Activities

Since the 1930s and 1940s, functional movement skills have been the main focus in assessment of daily living activities. This shift from the use of neuromaturational and reflex hierarchical frameworks for evaluation of children to the measurement of disablement related to functional activities was driven by contemporary theories of motor development and motor control, which supported motor learning and systems approaches to evaluation and intervention.

The focus on functional movement skills can also be seen today in the area of adapted physical education and special education (Davis & Burton, 1991), as in the development of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children Checklist (Henderson & Sugden, 1992).

Motor Development

Adaptive or functional changes in movement behaviour throughout life, and the processes underlying this behaviour. Changes occur in observable movement behaviours, usually categorized as non-locomotor (stabilizing), locomotor, or manipulative, or any combination of the [Page 318]three. Maturation, growth, and experience are variables that may lead to change in movement behaviour.

Psychomotor Development

Changes in behaviour throughout life, emphasizing the interaction between psychological and motor process.

Motor Abilities

General traits or capacities which underlie movement skills and are not easily modified by practice or experience.

Movement Skill

Specific and goal-directed movement patterns (e.g. running, writing). Also used as a qualitative expression of movement performance.

Psychomotor Development Assessment

Any activity, either formal (standardized, norm-referenced, criterion-referenced) or informal (using developmental, observational checklists or profiles), designed to elicit accurate and reliable samples of movement behaviour, that represent the developmental status of an individual.