ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the issues concerning fine motor development as well as to introduce some of the authors’ own research currently in progress at the UCLA Infant Studies Project. Development of prehension from the first tentative gropings of an infant to the use of a precise, refined grasp is one of the substantive accomplishments of infancy. Historically, there has been an assumption that mental and motor development were closely related, as early description and diagnosis of infant development was completely dependent on measurement of motor performance. Some of the most active research in the development of skill behaviors and the nature of its relationship to cognition is being done by J. S. Bruner. Infant development, Bruner suggests, provides a means to explore the way humans achieve adaptive and voluntary control of their environmental interactions. The first phase of the research was to differentiate the quality of movement of eight-month-old infants and then to try to relate this to their sensory-motor development.