3347group34-blog - Tumblr blog

[3347group34-blog]

Fine Motor Development

Painting requires various fine motor skills including the development of hand-eye coordination through many sensorimotor systems such as the visual system and the musculoskeletal system. Hand-eye coordination involves a combination of the visual system and musculoskeletal system to create fine motor movements (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 189). Prehension also plays a role in painting; the individual must be able to unimanually manipulate an object such as a paintbrush. Acquiring this fine motor skill requires adequate individual structural and functional development. Development allows the formation of complex manipulative motor skills which are necessary for effective prehension of a paint brush. A fine motor task is explained as a task involving the hands or fingers (Crabby & Noble, 2006).

Newell’s Model of Constraints discusses the evidence of individual, environmental and task constraints collectively influencing the dynamic progression and regression of motor skills (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 6). Throughout early childhood, children are limited by numerous individual structural and functional constraints due to factors such as limitations within their hand-eye coordination and perception-action. As children develop, they become more susceptible to functional constraints, which include factors such as their living context and environment (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 8). An example of a developmental functional constraint is how children who experience “First Child Syndrome” have a delayed onset of crawling, due to spending more time in the arms of the parents rather than in a prone position, which promotes self-locomotion (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 115). Experience could contribute to an individual's self-esteem, confidence and an individual's affordance for a task (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 277). The variability in exposure to extrinsic factors leads to unique functional constraints related to completing fine motor tasks.

In the development of fine motor skills, extrinsic environmental factors including socioeconomic status and education could affect the development of a fine motor skill. Furthermore, an individual with completely developed visual and structural system could still perform poorly at a motor task if they lack the task-specific practice. A study done on Brazilian primary students focusing on socioeconomic status looked at children from public and private school settings to evaluate fine motor skills. The study observed a 5.5 fold greater risk of having inadequate fine motor skills for children enrolled in public school versus private school. The observations from the study suggest that socioeconomic status and associated factors influence the development of fine motor skills (Bobbio et al., 2007, p. 1193). Furthermore, learning environments delivering age-appropriate tools and materials lead to extra opportunities which could assist fine motor development in young children and prepare them for adequate participation in school and later life (Isbell, 2012, p. 2).

As an individual develops, extrinsic factors begin to have a primary effect. This Tumblr page is a cross-sectional analysis which will primarily focus on the interaction between individual, task and environmental constraints. The impact of these constraints on fine motor development are explained, along with how this relationship could explain the many differences in painting skills between young children, preadolescents, adolescents and older adults.

[3347group34-blog]

Painting Protocol

1.   Participants will be provided a paintbrush and paint along with a painting sheet that is divided in half with an apple example on one side and a blank space on the other, as shown above.

2.   Participants will be instructed that they have one minute to copy the outline of the apple example on the blank half of the paper.

Note: Due to participant attention/cooperation and video time constraints, the 6 and 10-year old began the action with the paintbrush already in their hand.

[3347group34-blog]

6-Year-Old Analysis

The 6-year-old participant was expected to be susceptible to more discouraging individual constraints than the other participants due to a lack of developmental milestones. Within the videos and final products shown at the end of each video and in the discussion section, it is evident that the youngest participant was subject to multiple developmental limitations. These limitations caused the 6-year-old to perform the painting task with the least amount of accuracy (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 7). Subsequently, the combined results of the other participants fulfilled the relative performance expectation of the youngest participant.

As Haywood & Getchell (2014) stated, children improve on figure-and-ground perception tasks at 4 to 6 years of age, then again at 6 to 8 years (p. 215). This 6-year-old participant was the sole participant to advance through only half of the stages of figure-and-ground perception improvement. Additionally, Haywood and Getchell (2014) state how whole-and-part based perception is limited for children under the age of 9 (p. 215). Therefore, this child was also the only participant to ineffectively perceive specific parts of the apple from the whole picture. A unique lack of figure-and-ground perception and whole-and-part based perception combined could explain why the youngest participant’s painting mostly exhibited the circular body shape of the apple, rather than finer characteristics such as the stem and leaf (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 215).

The youngest participant appeared to use a fingers-only pinch grip; however, the child's grip greatly resembled a cylindrical power grip which is more optimized for raw and gross movements (Haywood & Getchell, 2014 p. 178). The child’s precision grip displayed a common neuromotor milestone which is common within his age group, but due to the ineffective nature of the child’s grip, this indicates the need for further visuomotor development, and also demonstrates how prehension plays a role in creating and controlling precise and accurate movements (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 228). Also, this child showed a neuromuscular delay through his performance of gross movements while painting: moving his entire arm instead of utilizing the elbow joint (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 188). Additionally, the child’s drawing could have been distorted because of a lack of directionality (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 223). Directionality is defined as the ability to recognize and move the body effectively within a certain space and is believed to improve between the ages of 6 and 12 (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 223). A lack of directionality could have caused this child to struggle more than the other participants while attempting to move his painting arm within the limited space necessary to complete the task effectively.

The child’s painting execution and final product demonstrated a lack of development within many internal systems, such as the visual, motor and perceptual systems. Additionally, the 6-year-old participant was subject to various unique discouraging individual constraints, which ultimately caused him to paint the apple with the least amount of effectiveness. The child not only provided insight into the numerous co-developing systems within the advancing human body, but also exhibited the complexity of the relationships between these systems.

[3347group34-blog]

10-Year-Old Analysis

The 10-year-old participant’s painting of an apple was expected to be more precise than the younger 6-year-old’s, because children aged 10 ordinarily have reached more motor milestones and usually have considerably more experience with manipulating tools such as a paintbrush. Additionally, a child typically has less painting experience than an adult, which is an individual functional constraint that should discourage their ability to paint comparably to an adult. With reference to the 10-year-old, this child is involved in an art class, causing her to possess additional painting experience and skill compared to a typical child of her age. Furthermore, this child’s mastery level possibly made it more enjoyable for her, which also could have acted as an encouraging individual constraint (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 277). The 10-year-old’s unique painting experience resulted in the production of an apple which was superior to the 6 and 17-year-old’s, but less superior than the 65-year-old’s.

According to Giudice (2000), visual perceptual and representational abilities are needed before the development of many activities such as drawing. These prerequisite abilities to drawing can include understanding of lines and angles, understanding of size and relative size, understanding the relationships of specific parts in relation to the whole and even understanding planning abilities (Giudice, 2000). Furthermore, painting experience most likely allowed this girl to develop many of these drawing prerequisites earlier than a typical child of her age, ultimately encouraging her painting abilities. Additionally, children aged 8 to 12 usually have a near adult visual-perception system, which is possibly why the 10-year-old girl demonstrated adequate visual perception through her painting (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 228). This participant was the sole participant to manipulate the actual canvas more than the paintbrush itself, as seen throughout her video. This phenomena might explain how manipulating and rotating the canvas is a skill which has developed through her experience as a developing artist. Furthermore, the action might also be a result of her compensating for incomplete systems involved with executing the fine motor task.

The perception-action approach to development describes how a person qualifies an object based on what affordance the object gives them individually (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 27). Therefore, the experience of the 10-year-old artist could have increased her perception of the task’s affordance, whereas the other participants might have not have had this advantage (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 27).

The 10-year-old participant was expected to perform better than the 6-year-old because she had reached more motor milestones and had been exposed to more enriched artistic environments. Additionally, the 10-year-old was expected to perform less effectively than the older participants because of a variety of age related individual constraints. However, in this scenario, the participant’s experience with art could have further developed many of her internal systems and ability to perceive the task to provide her with an above average affordance. This experience could have also subjected the 10-year-old to fewer discouraging individual constraints, allowing her to complete the second most accurate painting of an apple amongst the participants.

[3347group34-blog]

17-Year-Old Analysis

As children age, individual, environmental and task constraints guide the development of fine motor skills, and as motor milestones are achieved, structural constraints begin to be less influential (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 7). It is expected that in adolescence, an individual would have plenty of experience handling a drawing utensil, generally because of exposure to the educational system. Furthermore, an 17-year-old should not be experiencing any age-related declines in performance because this does not normally begin to emerge until about the age of 50 (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 85, 193). This information supports the proposition of how the adolescent participant was expected to create a more precise painting than the other age groups.

The adolescent participant was believed to be the only participant with an optimally functioning neuromuscular system (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 85, 193). The neuromuscular system is believed to be underdeveloped within the younger participants, and also subject to age-related decrements within older participant (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 85, 193). This supports the idea of how the adolescent was subject to the least number individual constraints than other participants for completing the task.

Although the video demonstrates that the adolescent utilized similar prehension of the paintbrush to the 10 and 65-year-old participants, the adolescent displayed an advantage within perception and multistage processing than the younger groups. This observation was derived particularly from the participant’s ability to reconstruct the image mainly through his internal perception and memory. Furthermore, the participant did not have to constantly pause to refer to the given diagram which was seen through the videos of the 10 and 6-year-old participants, which further supports superior processing and memory within the adolescent. This example demonstrates the adolescent’s greater ability to perceive, process, organize and integrate information than the younger groups (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 232). This is an example of the many developmental advantages an adolescent has over a younger child with reference to the painting task.

One unexpected result between the participants was that the 10-year-old’s production of a more precise painting to the developmentally advantaged 17-year-old adolescent. Additionally, the 10-year-old’s experience likely allowed her to be more accurate than many most participants because it is believed that both environmental constraints and the amount of purposeful practice an individual is exposed to both play an extensive role in fine motor development in adolescence and adulthood (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 232).

Additionally, the adolescent proved to have a much more advanced painting ability compared to the youngest 6-year-old’s portrait, but a less accurate depiction compared to the younger 10-year-old and older 65-year-old. Again, this occurrence could be due to underdevelopment of systems and the typical age-related declines in muscle coordination. The differences between the execution of the task and the task’s final products are evidence of age and experience related changes within systems and constraints.

[3347group34-blog]

65-Year-Old Analysis

The oldest participant was expected to perform poorer than the 17-year-old, because although many of the underlying principles for drawing were fully developed for both age groups, there are age-related reductions in coordination for older adults (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 215). The 65-year-old was also expected to perform better than the underdeveloped q0 and 6-year old participants. The eldest participant painted the most accurate apple shape, which could be due to an array of different, intertwined constraints. For example, although manual coordination decreases with age, this is mostly due to loss of muscle mass and musculoskeletal disorders (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 193). Because this elder participant did not suffer from any known musculoskeletal disorders, this could explain how he was able to maintain coordination, supporting the idea that there are many individual differences between people (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 232).

This adult did not suffer from any age related health problems such as arthritis which could have directly hindered his ability to paint (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 189). There also evidence of developmental changes within the nervous system, as observed by the eldest participant painting slower than all of the other participants (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 95, 193). Another possible encouraging constraint for the adolescent could have been their general experience with a typical apple shape. Past experience allows for a strong perception of the typical shape of an apple, further allowing him to focus on painting the entire time rather than referring to the example, which is similarly seen with the adolescent (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 228). The elder’s continual focus on his own painting could have been contributed to dampened vision, whereas it was contributed to a highly functioning systems within the adolescent. This is an example of the complexity within relationships of developmental phenomena which are subject to numerous interrelated factors.

Another factor which could have contributed to this participant’s superior painting could likely be his general experience with hand tools, such as paintbrushes, pencils and pens. Experience with these tools possibly allowed this participant to approach the task with a higher affordance than most other participants, which was also mentioned as a possible influence on the above average 10-year-old’s painting. Also, although aging systems within older adults can directly influence their reach, they are able to maintain accuracy through lengthening the deceleration stage of their reach (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 193). This deceleration action could portray an act of compensation from elder individuals, as they have adapted to execute continual precision of fine motor tasks despite their hindered visuomotor system.

Ultimately, the eldest participant was expected to perform poorer than the adolescent at this task, but more accurate than the other younger participants. Contrarily, many encouraging environmental constraints exhibited by the elder adult seemed to outweigh his discouraging individual constraints. These factors allowed the eldest participant to paint the most precise depiction of an apple. This interpretation is another example of the complexity of the interactions between various constraints.

[3347group34-blog]

Results & Discussion

Considering the many factors influencing development, it was predicted that the 17-year-old participant would perform the painting task with the most precision, because the younger participants were believed to be underdeveloped, and the older participant was predicted to be subject to multiple developmental deficiencies. Contrarily, the 65-year-old proved to paint the shape of an apple with the highest accuracy, followed by the 10-year-old, the 17-year-old, and the 6-year-old respectively. This phenomenon highlights the paradox of development; although many individual, environmental and task specific factors can predict an individual’s development, many individual differences also prove to be a factor. Evidence throughout the study suggests the idea that individual functional constraints are the most influential with reference to a fine motor task, which supports the general trends of development.

Painting is a complex fine motor movement requiring precise hand-eye coordination. Many bodily processes including hand-eye coordination challenge a combination of many internal systems, such as the visual system and musculoskeletal system. Observations throughout this study continually demonstrated an interrelationship between the developmental processes of different systems. Fine motor skills begin with the development of basic gross motor skills, which create the foundations for more complex movements. Many internal systems constantly interact and collectively influence one’s development. Motor milestones such as prehension, along with concepts of perception-action must be obtained as precursors to complex motor tasks such as painting. After childhood, little changes in prehension were observed, which demonstrated that any differences between groups could be attributed to more individual qualitative aspects, including mental representations, experience and form.

Furthermore, possible differing environmental constraints between participants could involve being raised in various cultures, educational systems and societies. These cultural differences could have caused each participant to acquire unique mental representations of what a typical apple looks like and also unique processes to execute the task. Therefore, each participant's painting could have been influenced by differing mental representations of a typical apple shape, and their perception of how to execute a painting of the shape. For this specific this scenario, individual functional constraints such as task specific experience, and environmental constraints such as cultural influence seem to have influenced the differences between the painting tasks to the highest degree (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 8). A cross-sectional analysis has been defined as the process of comparing the similarities and differences for certain phenomena between individuals of different ages (Haywood & Getchell, 2014, p. 12). This cross-sectional analysis of various age groups perceiving and painting an object has lent itself to be a prime example of the many factors influencing fine motor development.

[3347group34-blog]

References

[Acrylic apple painting]. (n.d.). Retrieved March 25, 2017, from http://willkempartschool.com/how-to-acrylic-paint-light-and-shade-part-3/

[Apple outline]. (n.d.). Retrieved March 10, 2017, from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/403424079094713456/

Bobbio, T.G., Morcillo, A. M., de Azevedo, B.F., & Goncales, V., Maria Gimenes. (2007). Factors associated with inadequate fine motor skills in brazilian students of different socioeconomic status. Perceptual and Motot Skills, 105(3), 1187-1195.

Cesari, P., & Newell, K. (2000). Body scaling of grip configurations in childfen aged 6-12 years [Abstract]. Developmental Psychobiology, 36(4), 301-310.

Craddy, B., & Noble, C. (2006). Psychomotor learning. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/psychomotor-learning

Giudice, E., Grossi, D., Angelini, R., Cristani, A., Latte, F., Fragassi, N., & Trojano, L. (2000). Spatial cognition in children. I. Development of drawing- related (visuospatial and constructional) abilities in preschool and early school years. Brain and Development, 22(6), 362-367.

Haywood, K., & Getchell, N. (2014). Life span motor development (6th ed.). Champaign, IL : Human Kinetics.

Isbell, C. (2012). Developmentally appropriate fine motor practices for early childhood settings. Early Intervention & School Special Interest Section Quarterly / American Occupational Therapy Association, 19(4), 1. 

[Paint pallet]. (n.d.). Retrieved March 10, 2017, from https://clipartfest.com/download/ebdeac0e61e7f305228eb9cd05d14bfd06ac43 a9.html