A motor skill is a learned sequence of movements that combine to produce a smooth, efficient action in order to master a particular task. The development of motor skill occurs in the motor cortex

Motor cortex

Motor cortex is a term that describes regions of the cerebral cortex involved in the planning, control, and execution of voluntary motor functions.-Anatomy of the motor cortex :The motor cortex can be divided into four main parts:...

, the region of the cerebral cortex

Cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex is a sheet of neural tissue that is outermost to the cerebrum of the mammalian brain. It plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. It is constituted of up to six horizontal layers, each of which has a different...

 that controls voluntary muscle groups.

Development of motor skills

Due to the immaturity of the human nervous system at the time of birth, children grow continually throughout their childhood years. Many factors contribute to the ability and the rate that children develop their motor skills. Uncontrollable factors include: genetic or inherited traits and children with learning disorders. A child born to short and overweight parents is much less likely to be an athlete than a child born to two athletically built parents. Controllable factors include: the environment/society and culture they are born to. A child born in the city is much less likely to have the same opportunities to explore, hike, or trek the outdoors than one born in the rural area. For a child to successfully develop motor skills, he or she must receive many opportunities to physically explore the surroundings.

Infantile: Early movements made by very young infants are largely reflexive. An infant is exposed to a variety of perceptual experiences through the five senses: vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Gradually, the infant learns that certain involuntary, reflexive movements can result in pleasurable sensory experiences, and will attempt to repeat the motions voluntarily in order to experience the pleasurable sensation.

Repetition is an important concept in motor learning. New motor skills can be reinforced through practice in order to become stronger, more fluid, and more coordinated. With enough practice, these movements become automatic and require no thought on behalf of the individual to execute. The most common examples are walking, crawling, and turning.

Children, through negative perceptual responses or no desire to partake in physical challenges, will show a delay in developing certain motor skills and automaticity. This is sometimes the cause of “clumsiness” that some children have.

Developmental Milestones: the age when a child is normally (compared to all other children) expected to be able to do an activity. Common milestones and the age expected are listed below.

• 6 months – can sit straight
• 12 months – takes first steps
• 24 months – can jump
• 36 months – can cut with scissors; runs on toes

Influences to development

Stress and arousal: stress and anxiety is the result of an imbalance between demand and the capacity of the individual. Arousal is the state of interest in the skill. The optimal performance level is moderate stress or arousal. An example of too low of arousal state is an overqualified worker performing repetitive jobs. An example of stress level too high is an anxious pianist at a recital.

Fatigue: the deterioration of performance when a stressful task is continued for a long time, similar to the muscular fatigue experienced when exercised for a rapid rate or lengthy period of time. Fatigue is caused by over-arousal. Fatigue impacts an individual in many ways: perceptual changes in which visual acuity or awareness drops, slowing of performance (reaction times or movements speed), irregularity of timing, and disorganization of performance.

Vigilance: the effect of the loss of vigilance is the same as fatigue, but is otherwise caused by the lack of arousal. Some tasks include jobs that require little work and high attention.

Stages of Motor learning

The stages to motor learning is the cognitive phase, the associative phase, and the autonomous phase.

Cognitive Phase: When a learner is new to a specific task, the primary thought process starts with, “what needs to be done?” Considerable cognitive activity is required so that the learner can determine appropriate strategies to adequately reflect the desired goal. Good strategies are retained and inefficient strategies are discarded. The performance is greatly improved in a short amount of time.

Associative Phase: the learner has determined the most effective way to do the task and starts to make subtle adjustments in performance. Improvements are more gradual and movements become more consistent. This phase can last for a long time.

Autonomous Phase: this phase may take several months to years to reach. The phase is dubbed because the performer can now “automatically” complete the task without having to pay any attention to. Examples include walking and talking or sight reading while doing simple arithmetic.

Feedback

During the learning process of a motor skill, feedback is the positive or negative response that tells the learner how well the task was completed. Inherent feedback: after completing the skill, inherent feedback is the sensory information that tells the learner how well the task was completed. A basketball player will note that he or she made a mistake when the ball misses the hoop. Another example is a diver knowing that a mistake was made when the entrance into the water is painful and undesirable.
Augmented feedback: in contrast to inherent feedback, augmented feedback is information that supplements or “augments” the inherent feedback. For example, when a person is driving over a speed limit and is pulled over by the police. Although the car did not do any harm, the policeman gives augmented feedback to the driver in order for him to drive more safely. Another example is a private tutor for a new student of a field of study. Augmented feedback decreases the amount of time to master the motor skill and increases the performance level of the prospect.
Transfer of motor skills: the gain or loss in the capability for performance in one task as a result of practice and experience on some other task. An example would be the comparison of initial skill of a tennis player and non-tennis player when playing table tennis for the first time. An example of a negative transfer is if it takes longer for a typist to adjust to a randomly assigned letters of the keyboard compared to a new typist.
Retention: the performance level of a particular skill after a period of no use.

Types of tasks

Continuous tasks: activities like swimming, bicycling, running; the performance level is just as proficient as before even after years of no use.

Discrete tasks: an instrument or a sport, the performance level drops significantly but will be better than a new learner. The relationship between the two tasks is that continuous tasks usually use gross motor skills and discrete tasks use finer motor skills.

Gross motor skills

Gross motor skill

Gross motor skill

Gross motor skills are the abilities usually acquired during infancy and early childhood as part of a child's motor development. By the time they reach two years of age, almost all children are able to stand up, walk and run, walk up stairs, etc...

 require the use of large muscle groups to perform tasks like walking, balancing, crawling. The skill required is not extensive and therefore are usually associated with continuous tasks. Much of the development of these skills occurs during early childhood. The performance level of gross motor skill remains unchanged after periods of non-use.

Fine motor skills

Fine motor skill

Fine motor skill

Fine motor skills are the coordination of small muscle movements which occur e.g., in the fingers, usually in coordination with the eyes. In application to motor skills of hands the term dexterity is commonly used....

 require the use of smaller muscle groups to perform tasks that are precise in nature. Activities like playing the piano and playing video games are examples of using fine motor skills. Generally, there is a retention loss of fine motor skills over a period of non-use. Discrete tasks usually require more fine motor skill than gross motor skills.

External links

• Section about motor learning and control in the Wikibook "Stuttering"'