WHY MOTOR SKILLS MATTER: Improve Your Child's Physical Development to Enhance Learning and Self-Esteem

Pediatric physical therapist Liddle's commonsense guide to early childhood development advocates a body-centered approach to development for unsure parents, or nervous parents-to-be. The author supports her thesis—"that mild deficiencies in physical development could have a major impact on self-esteem and well-being"—with four thorough sections: an overview of the newborn sensory system; first year of development; motor skills and language through age five; and a final part on children with "special considerations" (e.g., preemies and babies with low muscle tone, sensory issues or orthopedic conditions). Aided by editor Yorke, Liddle's non-technical prose explains infants' sensory systems (vestibular for balance, proprioceptive for spatial location and tactile for touch) and the importance of ensuring they work in harmony. The "ability to utilize our senses... to absorb information, sort it out, and then respond to it" defines Liddle's therapeutic specialty, sensory integration. She stresses that the quality of a baby's progression from belly play to sitting, crawling and creeping, is more important than the timing of these milestones, and she makes a compelling case for the connection between a newborn's muscle tone and his or her cognitive development and ultimate emotional and social success. Not another trend to promote exceptional babies, Liddle's sensible, unpreachy advice draws on solid orthopedic science to back up the relationship between physical movement and learning. In addition to sidebars on toys, and line drawings, lists of source materials, a bibliography and an index enhance this well-informed handbook. (Oct.)