| Sumario: | In our clinic, we are seeing more children who are less able to control their own bodies in space. They are unable to demonstrate age-appropriate ipsilateral and contralateral movement, upper and lower body control, or postural control. They will often demonstrate retained or poorly integrated primitive reflexes, and needless to say, eye-motor control is also poor. In education, these difficulties can manifest as an inability to sit still in the classroom, reading without fluency, and poor handwriting. Recently, when I asked a parent "what moving" their child was doing, I was advised of the number of times the family had changed address. This concerning response reflects society's changing concept of what type of movement experience is appropriate for children and raises questions regarding what impact today's culture and environment may have on the foundations of movement development in a young child. Many playgrounds have been stripped of certain styles of play equipment due to safety and litigation fears, backyards are shrinking, many families have both parents in full-time work, and there can be an excessive use of devices that unnecessarily restrict infants' natural movement. Rapid advances in technology provide benefits and advantages across many diverse areas of life, but these benefits may not extend to the development of good foundations of movement in childhood. Ironically, these advances in technology have also allowed us to gather evidence through in vivo neuroimaging that movement development and cognitive development are more closely related than previously thought. As optometrists, we are aware that eyes guide motor movement. Researchers across many disciplines agree that infants continue to learn by building on prior sensory-motor experience to plan, to perform, and to perfect their actions within their environment. This literature review reflects on what we currently know about the process of how movement begins in early childhood and what advice we may be able to provide to the families and the children in our care as a result.
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