Читать книгу Lifespan Development - Tara L. Kuther - Страница 353

As children grow older, their fine motor skills improve. The ability to button a shirt, pour milk into a glass, assemble puzzles, and draw pictures all involve eye–hand and small muscle coordination. As children get better at these skills, they are able to become more independent and do more for themselves. Young children become better at grasping eating utensils and become more self-sufficient at feeding. Many fine motor skills are very difficult for young children because they involve both hands and both sides of the brain. Tying a shoelace is a complex act requiring attention, memory for an intricate series of hand movements, and the dexterity to perform them. Although preschoolers struggle with this task, by 5 to 6 years of age, most children can tie their shoes (Payne, Isaacs, & Larry, 2016). Recent research suggests that children’s fine motor ability influences cognition—specifically, their ability to use their fingers to aid in counting predicts their mathematical skills (Fischer, Suggate, Schmirl, & Stoeger, 2018).

Climbing requires strength, coordination, and balance.

Michele Oenbrink / Alamy Stock Photo

Young children’s emerging fine motor skills enable them to draw using large crayons and, eventually, pencils. Drawing reflects the interaction of developmental domains: physical (fine motor control) and cognitive (planning skills, spatial understanding, and the recognition that pictures can symbolize objects, people, and events) (Yamagata, 2007). Although toddlers simply scribble when given a crayon, by 3 years of age, children‘s scribbles become more controlled, often recognizable, pictures. A human figure is often drawn as a tadpole-like figure with a circle for the head with eyes and sometimes a smiley mouth and then a line or two beneath to represent the rest of the body. Tadpole-like forms are characteristic of young children’s art in all cultures (Cox, 1993). Most 3-year-olds can draw circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, crosses, and Xs and they begin to combine shapes into more complex designs. Between 3 and 4, young children begin to understand the representational function of drawings, and even when drawings appear to be nothing more than scribbles, young children often label them as representing a particular object and remember the label. In one study, children were asked to draw a balloon and a lollipop. The drawings looked the same to adults, but the children were adamant about which was which (Bloom, 2000), suggesting that it is important to ask a child what his or her drawing is rather than guess, because children’s creations reflect their perspectives. Between ages 4 and 5, children’s drawings loosely begin to depict actual objects, demonstrating the convergence of fine motor skills and the cognitive development of representational ability. As shown in Figure 7.1, human figures typically include a torso, arms, legs, faces, and soon hands. As cognitive and fine motor skills improve, children create more sophisticated drawings of the human form. Table 7.1 summarizes milestones of gross and fine motor skill development in young children.

Figure 7.1 A Typical 2- to 3-Year-Old’s Drawing of a Person

Source: Claire Marley, 2009.

Table 7.1