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The Development of Movement Control and Coordination

An introduction to direct perception, dynamic systems and the natural physical perspective

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Current Issues in Developmental Psychology

Abstract

The roots of the study of child behaviour can be found in the reports by Darwin (1877) and Preyer (1882), which provide detailed observations of infant behaviour. However, the first real “explosion”of research in motor development was in the 1930s and 1940s with the work from Gesell (Gesell & Amatruda, 1941), McGraw (1935), Shirley 1931; 1933 and Bayley 1933, 1935, 1936). Their studies led to the construction of several infants scales with respect to mental and motor development. After a long period of neglect a rejuvenation took place in the eighties and nineties. Since then several chapters, journal special issues and books have been published on development, looking at skills such as reaching, grasping, locomotion and posture (e.g., the more recent ones: Bertenthal & Clifton, 1996; Kalverboer, Hopkins, & Geuze, 1993; Lockman & Thelen, 1993; Savelsbergh, 1993; Thelen & Smith, 1994). New research paradigms for the study of developing systems have been responsible for this second wave of work, including ecological psychology (Gibson, 1979), dynamic systems theory (e.g., Kelso & Clark, 1982) and the natural physical approach (e.g., Kugler, 1986). These paradigms have offered new research questions, tools and concepts for the study of motor development. The goal of this chapter is to focus on these three paradigms, to discuss their relevance for perceptual-motor development, and to highlight their contribution with reference to the findings of several developmental studies.

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Authors
  1. Geert Savelsbergh
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  2. Raymond Wimmers
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  3. John Van Der Kamp
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  4. Keith Davids
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Experimental Clinical Psychology, State University of Groningen, The Netherlands

    A. F. Kalverboer

  2. Developmental Psychology, University of Bologna, Italy

    M. L. Genta

  3. Developmental Psychology, University of Lancaster, UK

    J. B. Hopkins

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Savelsbergh, G., Wimmers, R., Van Der Kamp, J., Davids, K. (1999). The Development of Movement Control and Coordination. In: Kalverboer, A.F., Genta, M.L., Hopkins, J.B. (eds) Current Issues in Developmental Psychology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4507-7_5

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