Issue 3.1: Coordination and Movement Regulation

The psychomotor development is a concept that integrates the idea of controlling owns body in both external and internal aspects, and we can find two neurological basis that explains the process through which we acquire that control. The first one is the Cephalocaudal law, which establishes the order from head to feet, this is the normal evolution of control of the body in little child, and although I cannot see big differences in the high trunk, I think it can be easily seen if we think that the last part of the body that a kid learns to use is the legs and feet (that's why the first step is a so emotional moment). 

The second one is Proximodistal law, and it establishes the order situating and invisible line where our vertebral column is places and placing the beginning there, and the end on both extremes (moving from the vertebral column outside in both ways right and left), this basis can be also clearly understood if we think about the arms of a child, first of all he or she will be able to move the arm as a whole piece, later on will be able to control the elbow, dividing the arm in two parts. Later on he or she will start acquiring the movement of the wrist, achieving in this way actions such as opening a door. And finally we will get to the hand, first of all also as a whole thing, and later on achieving the action of using the fingers to pick up something, that will allow him or her to pick up a pencil, for example.

We can find five stages in the ontogenetic changes of the psychomotor development, those I think are important for us to understand this important concept of the psychomotor abilities acquisition, the first one is the impulsive stage, and the name define itself as is the stage that refers to time when all child movements are caused by external impulses, for example if you hold them a finder they will grape it with their little hand.

The second one is the emotional stage, which is the stage in which the kid start to show emotions, and, for example, they can smile, or show anger with their face (only basic emotions).  The sensorimotor stage is the one in which the child learn how to walk, so a different world of interactions and possibilities is born, the actions of exploration and interaction with new objects is born.

The projective stage is the one in which the child learns the object through the interactions that he or she has done with it, this is the first stage in which the psychomotor abilities achieve a function of consciousness. Finally we get into the personalized stage, in which each child develop their own personality and also the development of an autonomy towards the adult.

I've found those stages quite interesting so I wanted to know how was my process through those ontogenetic changes, I asked my parents and they told me that I was quite strange because I didn't respond to the stimulus most of the times (they thought I was very lazy) but I started smiling very soon.

But definitely the part of this issue that I've most enjoyed was the psychomotor progress at school age, because, a part from all the theory I really enjoy seeing how all the subject is related to our professional future. First of all in we fins the lateral dominance, which is a concept I really understood thanks to the mini-research from another group of my seminar called "Let's Dance". The methodology of their project was to make kids follow a certain dance steps, and one of the thinks that they find out teachers have more problems with is the lateralization.

Secondly, the muscular tonicity, which is related with the consciousness that students have of their own muscular tension, and it's also related with the control of their body in general, the example we have also worked with is to make them know that they cannot grave with the same power a balloon or a ball, because the balloon may explore. Another example is the difference between touching a cat skin or a cactus, they cannot neither use the same strength or they may injure themselves.

Thirdly we have the topic of the body equilibrium, which is the capacity to orient the body in the space, this area is also divided in two parts, the static equilibrium and the dynamic one, the main difference is that the gravity center of the first one is stopped and the second one is in movement. In order to acquire the dynamic equilibrium (in actions such as riding a bike) we first need a well development of the static one (such as running without falling down).

Finally we have the last relation of the psychomotor development in the school age is the capacity to orientate appropriately the body on the space, which consists on the acquisition of spatial references and the achievement of objective location. The first topic refers to the achievement of the kids of topics such as the personal spatial references, which means being able to say near or far, which are abstract concepts that can vary depending on the person that uses them. The objective location means to lose the egocentrism, and I have a daily example of it in the dining room in which I work, because if you ask for the time to an initial cycle student they will tell you "lunch time" or "music activity  time" or "leisure time", because this is the activity they are going to do at that moment. If you ask the same to a superior cycle student they will look for their clock and they will tell you the real hour that it is.

To sum up, I think this concrete issue was especially interesting from my point of view, because I was used to relate the psychomotor skills development with topics such as sports, when for example a boy trying to hit a ball of football falls down by himself you used to think that "he doesn't have the psychomotor abilities fully developed" or that "he doesn't have really good psychomotor abilities" but I have never relate it with, for example, the organization or space and time until now, and I think it is also important and is one of the things that you can work indirectly while working other curricular contents, but it is important for us to develop them one way or another.