Intervention in Psychomotricity: What is This Discipline?

Psychomotor skills are the discipline that studies the relationship between the psyche and motor ability. of the human being.

Born throughout the 20th century by authors such as the neurologist Ernest Dupré or the psychologist Henry Wallon, let’s see what this area of study really consists of and how interventions are carried out in the child population. Likewise, we will review other concepts related to Psychomotor Skills, such as the foundations of motor development and the definition of what is known as “body schema.”

Table of Contents

Basic principles of Psychomotricity

The discipline of Psychomotricity is based on theoretical premises on how to understand the different typologies of development in human beings. As to the perspective of psychological development, it is assumed that the subject is in continuous interaction with the environment in which he or she operates; From the point of view of motor development, it is stated that there is a relationship between the motor and psychological functions (cognitive, emotional, social) of each person; On the part of sensory development, it is understood that there is a link between the senses and the integral maturation of the individual.

Another of the fundamental theoretical principles is based on recognizing that the correct construction of the body schema favors the development of psycho-cognitive abilities Furthermore, it is validated that the body is the key aspect of contact with external reality, which is produced thanks to its movement.

On the other hand, motor skills are assumed to be inseparable from the behavior of the same individual, which interacts with the environment, enabling the development of complex capabilities. Finally, a last fundamental idea would grant a decisive role to language in the process of psychic development of each subject.

Determining factors in motor development

Motor development consists of a continuous process that begins from the embryonic phase and does not stop until the individual reaches maturity, adopting very different rhythms depending on each subject although following the same sequence in all the stages that comprise it. One of the first samples that take place there refers to the expression of innate reflexes that little by little disappear to later transform into voluntary and controlled movements of a different nature.

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This is possible once the myelination process is carried out and completed and is established in the layers of the cerebral cortex (which regulate these voluntary actions), so that each time the movement is refined and perfected. in all its coordinated aspects.

Among the factors that determine motor development, three types can be distinguished: prenatal, perinatal and postnatal Among the first, aspects such as maternal characteristics and habits (age, diet, presence of diseases, hereditary characteristics, etc.) that can negatively affect the fetus during pregnancy are relevant. At the time of delivery, complications may occur during extraction, which may lead to episodes of anoxia or brain injury (perinatal factors).

As for postnatal factors, there are multiple, although they mainly focus on: the level of physical and neurological maturation, the nature of the stimulation and experiences to which it is subjected, the type of food, the environment, the types of care and hygiene, the existence of affective behaviors on the part of significant figures, etc. As mentioned previously, physical development is very closely related to psychological, emotional, behavioral and social development, therefore, the result obtained from the combination of all of them will be decisive for the child.

What is meant by body schema?

The concept of body schema is defined as the knowledge that an individual has about his or her own body, which includes a full awareness of it, whether it is at rest or in movement, about the relationship that the set of elements that compose it maintain among themselves and the link of all this to the space or context that surrounds it (physical And social). In this way, both emotional self-perception (mood or own attitudes) and the heteroperception that others maintain towards a subject are also relevant aspects in the configuration of the body schema.

As equivalent expressions or alternative ways of naming the body scheme, there are also binomials such as Body Image, Body Consciousness, Postural Scheme, Self-Image or Image of the Body Self. Different authors such as Wallon, Le Boülch, Acaen and Ajuriaguerra or Frostig have made their own contributions to define the concept of body schema, although they all unanimously agree on the idea of subject-environment bidirectional influence (physical and social) and the individual’s awareness of his or her own body.

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One of the most relevant proposals is the one made by Bryan J. Cratty, whose classification of the determining components of the body schema is novel and interesting by influencing the influence of cognitive aspects in its configuration. Thus, for Cratty, the components of the Body Scheme would:

Integrating learning

Regarding the development of the body schema, it is assumed that it is as the child incorporates the set of learning that will allow greater cognitive-affective-social competence of himself and the environment when the formation of this body image occurs. of himself differentiated from that of others and the context that surrounds him. For this reason it is said that in the first years of life it is when the individual personality is structured and that from this point the awareness of oneself in space and time is made possible with respect to everything that is foreign to oneself.

More specifically, the evolution of the formation of the body schema begins in the first months of life at the level of reflex reactions, which are transformed in other types of more elaborate movements as the baby, in the second year of life, explores and gets to know the environment. This is facilitated by its growing capacity for autonomous movement.

From the age of three and until the end of childhood, changes occur at the cognitive level so that the child replaces the subjectivity of understanding the outside world with a more elaborate analytical-rational capacity. Finally, at approximately 12 years of age is when the establishment and awareness of the body scheme is completed.

Psychomotor skills in the Early Childhood Education stage

In recent decades, the Spanish educational system has been incorporating as relevant some content from disciplines that had traditionally gone unnoticed (or simply had not been investigated yet), such as Psychomotor Skills.

Even so, there is still a long way to go to ensure that this interest occurs universally in all areas and current society. This is due to the historically established idea that the only learning that is relevant to teach is instrumental or productive, overlooking the fact that these are often influenced by other more expressive ones.

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Thus, the deficit in areas such as perceptual, cognitive, emotional organization, etc., which allow psychological balance and an adequate capacity to adapt to the changing environment, can lead to a result of school failure if it is not corrected in time. In the specific case of Psychomotor Skills, there is research that relates the existence of manifest learning difficulties such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, disorders of expressive language or arithmetic calculation that arise from problems in sensory integration or deficits in the visual or auditory perceptual organization (and body, indirectly) of the individual.

More globally, the formation of personality and intelligence They also start from an adequate structuring of the “I” differentiated from the “external world”, which requires a correct assimilation of contents related to psychomotor skills that make it possible. This is also comparable to the achievement of satisfactory psychophysiological development, since the coordination and successful execution of an individual’s physical movements is one of the purposes worked on in Psychomotricity.

The importance of global development in children

For all the above, and as a summary, it could be said that the need to teach Psychomotor content in the early childhood education stage lies in the facilitation in the scope of global and integral development of the child (physical -motor coordination-, affective, social, intellectual), in the establishment of one’s own identity, in the promotion of self-awareness, in favoring the acquisition of school learning and in the achievement of satisfactory social relationships (increased linguistic competence), in the acquisition of sufficient autonomy, self-efficacy, self-concept, etc., and in the development of affective and emotional capacities.