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Gross Motor Skills

Gross motor skills involve the ability to use the larger muscles in the body to execute big movements such as running, hopping, throwing, catching and kicking. These skills serve a developmental purpose, as they are the foundations for more complex skill development. They promote muscle strength; develop agility and perceptual skills needed for learning.

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Good gross motor ability enables sustained upright position for desktop activities, using hand and finger movements that are dissociated from shoulder and arm, which leads to a fluent and smooth performance and appropriate fine motor skill development.

Fine Motor Skills

Fine motor skill (or dexterity) is the coordination of small muscles, in movements—usually involving the synchronization of hands and fingers—with the eyes. The complex levels of manual dexterity that humans exhibit can be attributed to and demonstrated in tasks controlled by the nervous system.

 

Fine motor skills aid in the growth of intelligence and develop continuously throughout the stages of human development. Fine motor skills are involved in smaller movements that occur in the wrists, hands, fingers, and the feet and toes. They participate in smaller actions such as picking up objects between the thumb and finger, writing carefully, and even blinking. Gross and fine motor skills work together to provide coordination.

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