Posture and movement

What is posture and movement?

What is posture and movement?

Movement of your body and limbs allow you to interact with the world. It covers everything from eye movements and swallowing to walking.

Movement is split into gross motor skills and fine motor skills:

Gross motor activities involve the large muscles of the arms, legs and body. Head control comes into this category, as well as rolling, sitting, crawling, walking and jumping.

Fine motor skills relate to the smaller muscles of the hand and wrist, though control of the core body and shoulders is also needed. Children need fine motor skills in order to make marks, write and use tools like cutlery or scissors.

Posture is a factor in movement. We automatically control our body posture as we move. You might also hear about muscle ‘tone’, which is the tension of the muscle when we are resting or moving.

What your child might experience

Your child may need support to learn about his or her body, and help to find the best way to move around the world. Their movement will affect the way they communicate, tackle everyday tasks, play and learn. 

Children come to Pace with unique sets of abilities and challenges. Some have challenges with muscle tone, which can mean their muscles are never fully relaxed – or they may struggle to switch their muscles on. This is caused by the flow of information to and from the brain, along the spinal cord. 

How Pace can help

We help children discover their bodies and movement potential, using play and therapy.  

Children need to be able to move towards or away from something to learn and communicate. So we use mobility equipment, including powered mobility, if the child does not yet have these physical skills.

We work on posture and fine motor skills, because children need to be able to make marks – create lines or shapes on a surface – in preparation for education.