Gross Motor Development for Your Child with Autism

Physical Therapy addresses any deficits in gross motor skills.

Developmental Milestones

Know what skills your child should be doing at their age and facilitate any they are not.

Educate yourself as to what skills are coming next and begin challenging those skills now so your child has them mastered by that next age level.

Interesting fact:  Did you know that each developmental skill builds a foundation for the next developmental skill?

Coordination and Motor Planning

  • Jumping up, down and forward for progressively further distances
  • Galloping
  • Skipping
  • Jumping rope
  • Hop scotch
  • Scooter / bike riding

These are gross motor social skills that allow a child to fit into and play with social groups.

Eye-Hand Coordination

Throwing, kicking and catching is developmentally important for gym class, the playground, the backyard and the athletic field.

Interesting Fact:  Throwing large balls progressing to small balls with success to a target build a foundation for good handwriting skills!

Balance

  • Stair Negotiation – going up and down stairs
  • One foot standing
  • Hopping

These are life skills that allow you to negotiate a curb to the store without falling.

Postural Control

Ensuring that a child maintains an upright posture will protect him/her from pain due to muscle tightness/strain.

Bony deformity such as scoliosis or kyphosis can be avoided by upright postural control.

Breath control is optimized with an upright posture allowing better volume and sentence length when speaking.