ABSTRACT
Children normally develop a wide range of motor skills during the early years of life, including sitting, standing, walking and running, and finally combine these skills into intricate repertoires in such performance areas as dance and gymnastics. The basis for their ability to move in these intricate and refined ways lies in their having learned and mastered foundational postural and locomotor skills early in life. For example, it has been shown that whenever children make even a simple voluntary movement, such as reaching for a toy, they activate postural muscles in advance of the movement to prepare the body for the destabilizing effect of the movement itself and the added weight of the toy to be lifted.
