Spontaneous arm movements

Early motor development

In terms of motor development, most newborn infants exhibit spontaneous and reflexive movements. As infants move toward becoming toddlers, they begin to attain motor milestones. These gross movements slowly become more refined throughout infancy and early childhood. Moreover, infants gain the ability to lift their heads, sit up, and eventually stand with minimal support. In the past, parents and educators alike have thought of this process as maturation. In other words, maturation of the central nervous system was the sole individual constraint to guide early motor behavior. Current research from an ecological perspective suggests that the interplay of many systems such as cognitive, perceptual and motor, leads to the movement adaptations seen in infancy.

Infants movements.

Some of movements seem to be undirected and without purpose. For example, infants often kick their leg while lying on their backs. These spontaneous movements appear without any apparent stimulation. At other times, infants will move in a specific way every time they are touched in a certain place. An infant is born with a variety of reflexes that seem to disappear slowly as she/he ages, and she/he appears to move with discrete, purposeless actions that have little to do with future voluntary movements. Those seemingly random infant movements have an important relationship with international movements that occur later on life. After the first few months of life, the infant will begin to attain motor milestones, which are particular movement skills eventually lead to locomotion, reaching, and upright posture.

Spontaneous movements.

Spontaneous movements seem very different from walking or reaching, and pediatricians, parents, and other have believed that they were without any particular purpose or had no relationship to the future movements the child would someday choose to make.

Supine kicking and walking.

If a child is laid on his back, he will likely spontaneously thrust his leg. This is called supine kicking. The supine kicking was not random but rhythmical, and the kicks had a coordinated pattern. The ankle, knee, and hip joints moved cooperatively with each other, not independently from one another. Though an infant’s supine kicks are similar to an adult’s walking steps, they are not identical.

Spontaneous arm movements.

Infants also move their arms, and newborns’ spontaneous arm movements show well-coordinated extension of the elbow, wrist, and finger joints. Fingers do not extend independently, or one at a time, but in unison with the hand, wrist, and elbow. Arm movements are not as rhythmical and repetitious as leg kicks, though. Spontaneous movements are part of the fundamental building blocks of voluntary, functional movement.

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