Did Your Child Reach Her or His Gross Motor Milestones?
Carie Tenzel’s son, Chaz Tenzel-Walser, is 15 years old. When he was diagnosed with autism, the doctor told her that he would never graduate from high school and would “most likely need special care for the rest of his life,” the April 5th TimesDaily.com (Alabama) reports. Now Chaz is doing this:
He’s attended mainstream classes since kindergarten, plays trumpet in the Dale County High School Marching Band and is on track toward an advanced high school honors diploma.
One thing that stood out in the TimesDaily.com’s article about Chaz and his mother is that he was delayed in reaching some of his gross motor milestones as a baby. He did not crawl until he was 10 months old, and then crawled backward.
My son Charlie was also late to reach his gross motor milestones as a baby. He rolled over once at the age of four months and then never again until he was nine months old; I realize, in retrospect, that his big head and long, lanky limbs must have made a lot to coordinate. He sat up on his own when he was in his seventh month. He did not crawl but, at eleven months, started scooting around on his derrière with his left leg extended and his right leg tucked in close to his body (as it had been when Charlie was just born). Charlie walked at sixteen months and stood on his own around the same time (and still preferred to cling to the wall or furniture or our hands).
Charlie did learn to ride a bike without training wheels when he was six (thanks in no small part to Jim’s efforts) but must have been around seven when he started to put out his hands to catch himself as he fell. Hopping and skipping came at the age of eight: Again, Charlie is top-heavy with a big head and his legs and arms just keep growing, and his sense of balance has developed slowly. Charlie was nine when he was able to catch a ball.
Some parents have told me that their children also had such delays, while others have said that their child did not. Indeed, some parents whose children met all their gross and fine motor milestones then had other delays in social and communicative skills.
Even though it has often taken longer for Charlie to acquire many gross motor skills, once he gets them, he gets them. And he’s quite the walker now.
Tags: asd, asperger, autism, Baby, gross motor development, milestones, mother, Parenting, pdd-nos, perfect
23 opinions for Did Your Child Reach Her or His Gross Motor Milestones?
Pete
Apr 7, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Interesting how ASD manifests itself differently. Our daughter had typical gross motor development through age 2. Rolled over, sat up, crawled, walked, ran all within or ahead of the “typical” milestone expectation. It was the social and communication development that was clearly delayed. As we dug into it with various professionals, we discovered there were also gross motor deficiencies (jumping, skipping, stair climbing, pedaling etc) which were for the most part non existent as well as a slew of fine motor skill deficiencies. OT continues to be very effective for Olivia and it’s the Gross Motor and Fine Motor skills today, at age 5, where she has shown the most progress. The social and communicative aspects are improving slowly, with lots of therapy and will continue to be her biggest challenge going forward.
Leila
Apr 7, 2008 at 12:35 pm
My son has good motor skills and reached those milestones early or on average time as a baby and toddler. The things where he falls behind now are for lack of motivation/interest. Learning how to pedal a byke came late (and only by being reinforced during ABA therapy) but it only took him one session to go out pedaling like a pro. There are other examples of motivation as a major factor. For instance, young kids his age are already interested in learning to play soccer or T-ball. He couldn’t care less. He’s not interested in movements such as pushing or punching like the typical little boy that wants to be “strong” like a super hero. He has now low muscle tone on his upper body, which wasn’t a problem when he was younger. He’ll need to catch up at some point.
Emily
Apr 7, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Oldest son (TH) had gross and fine motor delays (still does). Had social and communication delays, but was right on target with talking. Our middle son was essentially on target with most developmental milestones, perhaps a tad behind on some, but quite within the range of normal. He has some current fine and gross motor delays, but nothing that interferes with function. Our baby (toddler, really; he’s ~20 mos) has all delays–motor, social, talking. Only our oldest has a dx on the spectrum, but given that the baby has such obvious issues, that dx will come up for him, too.
Rose
Apr 7, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Ben sat up at 8 months, walked at 15 months, just a little late. He had poor gross motor skills, but I wonder, too, if it was motivation. Once, at age four, he colored with pencil perfectly. I should have kept the paper because for the next 5 years he never colored within the lines.Weird…
Autismville
Apr 7, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Jack didn’t walk until 18 months. We were so hyper-focused on walking we didn’t notice his emerging self-stimulatory behaviors and complete lack of language and joint attention…
Hindsight … :(
Estee
Apr 7, 2008 at 2:22 pm
We still have motor planning issues. I believe that occupational therapy is been one of the most important elements where Adam can actually be assisted via “therapy.” Sensory issues is another area that this has helped with fantastically.
Laura
Apr 7, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Our daughter had a full body hip brace from month two to month six and it prevented her from rolling over, sitting up, etc. After the brace was off, she met those milestones quickly. Most of those early ones she met within typical standards. However, jumping came to her almost a year late and she still struggles with stair climbing (we live in a two story home so it’s a regular challenge for her). She has very low tone and also a larger head compared to her body (she is under the 3rd percentile in weight and height and her head is in the 80-90%). When she was a baby, we used to tease her about her big head and say that was why she struggled with gross motor skills like rolling over and sitting up as she was on the late end with all of those skills (even if it was still within typical standards). Had we known what truth we had actually touched on, we might have been yelling for some OT/PT a little earlier on. In fact, her hip dysplasia as a newborn, we now think was actually very low tone that was being felt. After several professional opinions, they all felt the hip brace was unnecessary and unwarranted as “nothing” was wrong with her hip development.
ange
Apr 7, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Bubba was always ahead gross motor, but he was in early intervention (Pt 1x month, mostly stretching) starting at 3 months old. He had the motivation to move, that’s for sure! He can pedal a bike now, but can’t coordinate the whole look where he’s going, pedal, and balance thing, so we stay off the street with training wheels. His biggest difficulty is coordination. Moose was fine laying in one place with only his blanket for however long I would let him. And if he got excited, his little legs would go stiff and boy would he kick (it has since morphed into his happy dance). He was late in everything. Finally walked at 18 months (PT 1x week started for him some months before then).
Katherine
Apr 7, 2008 at 4:21 pm
It is interesting how different all children are. The only area where our son developed typically was in gross motor skills. But he was very delayed in all other areas, fine motor skills, lack of speech, social skills. He does still have problems with motor planning and bilateral coordination–which we still work on in OT–but he rolled over, crawled, walked (rather, ran!) on time and even early. It was the lack of speech and the stimming that caught our attention at around 18 mos.
Katherine
Beth
Apr 7, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Nicholas met his gross motor milestones on time; crawled at 9 months, walked at 12 months. He did not sit unassisted until after he crawled but I think that’s because he was really chubby and had trouble supporting his upper body, which is kind of amusing since I am in a constant struggle to put weight on him now!
He was (and still is) actually pretty coordinated with gross motor. His fine motor/spatial skills are a different story…but those didn’t seem delayed until it was time to learn how to write.
Marla
Apr 7, 2008 at 7:20 pm
M is still working on her gross and fine motor skills. We work on them often. She was on time as an infant and toddler with everything and then it all slowed.
emily
Apr 7, 2008 at 7:22 pm
My daughter was my first child, so I obsessed (hyperfocused?) about every aspect of her development. She met most of the milestones early or on time, but she was very late rolling over (eight months?). I seem to recall an article in the Times about 10 years ago which said something about rolling over, that kids on the spectrum don’t do some sort of corkscrew move when they roll but have to lift their heads up. Whatever the issue was, it was fairly subtle, and one of my friends, a pediatrician, said that the milestone charts were going to have to be changed anyway b/c of the Back to Sleep campaign: babies having less time on their stomachs, I suppose. Thus was I temporarily placated.
She crawled lateish (10 months?) but walked right on schedule–first steps on first birthday. In some ways her coordination is excellent: she is good at gymnastics and has great balance, though her awareness of her body in space is still problematic–steps on my feet all the time when we’re walking, bumps into me, etc.
kal
Apr 7, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Both my boys had gross motor delays, but S. caught up pretty quickly. Because he had heart surgery so young, J. was very late with every milestone and still has some issues with his gross motor skills. While he can usually navigate stairs, for example, he is often unfocused - I guess not really aware of his body in space, so I’m usually hovering right behind him. PT and OT have helped tremendously though.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Apr 7, 2008 at 9:54 pm
@Rose,
Charlie colored perfectly at the age of 3, leveled off at the age of 4 1/2, and has not done that again (yet).
Jill
Apr 7, 2008 at 10:25 pm
My older son, Matthew, had a strange crawl where one leg was dragging. He walked at 11 months and was able to take off running at 12 months. My other son, Alex, also walked at 11 months - he was actually able to get in the stand position when he was only 7 months by grabbing onto the sofa. My son, Matthew, also loves to walk on the ledge of our deck. He is a pro on the balance beam but has no interest in using the bike pedals. I remember observing at a birthday party where the children with severe autism where the most coordinated on the balance beams. Perhaps it is because of their lack of fear. I don’t know why that is but is was very interesting to observe.
MomtoJBG
Apr 7, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Both my twins were very, very delayed with both gross and fine motor milestones. Gross motor has gotten much better, but fine motor is still way behind.
I used to worry about it a lot, but now it seems like it will all come with time.
AnneC
Apr 8, 2008 at 12:29 am
Hmm. According to the records my parents kept, and the one evaluation record I can find from when I was four, my early motor milestones seem to have been met “on schedule” or slightly ahead in some cases. However, I did have specific areas of difficulty — I have never been able to throw or catch a ball very effectively, and I used to fall down a lot while walking (my father tells me that he would look back and not see me, only to find I was somewhere on the ground). I was terrible in gym class all through school, except for when we did pull-ups or jumping rope. I was not a fast runner at all and people used to make fun of me and tell me that I “ran like a duck”.
On the other hand, though, I was able to ride a two-wheeler by age seven, and always enjoyed roller skating and gymnastics (I can still do cartwheels, though I can’t do nearly the stuff Kassiane can do!). My fine motor skills have also always been quite good — I started doing calligraphy in fifth grade or thereabouts, and I’m decent at drawing. I’m definitely “fine motor biased” overall I’d say.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Apr 8, 2008 at 1:39 am
I hadn’t thought of that—”fine motor biased.” On which note, both Charlie and Jim have some similarities: Both struggle with handwriting (my own is very messy, but from lack of effort and too much typing over the years) and with small motor movements (things like hanging up a towel straight).
I still duck when a ball is tossed my way.
None of the 3 of us can draw.
S.L.
Apr 9, 2008 at 10:53 am
My daughter has always had delays, as well. At 7 months, she slowly began to sit on her own (for a few seconds at a time), it wasn’t until almost 10 months that she was able to roll over (& struggled with that until she was 2), slowly began to crawl at 11 months, and didn’t walk until after 18 months. Aside from motor delays, there has always been things that made her different–she hand-flapped & wrung her hands nonstop, before she was 1. Even as an infant didn’t have eye contact, was not engaged in others or in toys, and needed movement to be happy (thank goodness for baby slings!). That is why I too have a hard time relating to those who say a “light” went off in their child, etc. We never experienced that (& more importantly, never had such a reaction to vaccines). With regard to motor skills, our daughter still has hypotonia & delays, issues with motor planning, etc. But, like Charlie, she has made awesome progress and continues to do so!
Annie
Apr 9, 2008 at 2:54 pm
My daughter on the spectrum has always been physically powerful — I first noted it in her baby book at the age of 2 weeks, and it’s still evident over 3 years later. She rolled over at 12 weeks, sat & crawled on schedule, walked before 12 months and ran very shortly thereafter. But between sensory / motor planning / attention-span issues, she’s missed a ton of fine-motor milestones and doesn’t yet do things like pedal a trike or catch a ball.
My neurotypical daughter, by contrast, didn’t roll over until 5 months, pull to stand until 12 months, or walk until 15 months. She almost skipped crawling altogether, instead preferring a strange “kayaking” scoot where, from a sitting position, her legs would take turns moving like little paddles, propelling her forward.
Such a huge range of experiences our kiddos represent!!
Melody
Apr 10, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I don’t know about when I was a baby, but I know that I do have a lot of trouble with both fine and gross motor movement (which makes P.E. and handwriting difficult - thankfully in high school you hardly ever have to handwrite as opposed to typing, and I mostly just use a pen or pencil for tests and labs).
Of course, physical awkwardness never stopped me from climbing the furniture and those kinds of stunts kids do. Though it has made my last two field trips (one to the tidepools) difficult. I once went to the tidepools when I was in third grade and had the same kind of difficulty, except that I had my dad with me then to help. That’s okay, though, because I have friends and teachers who could help me around.
Last Week’s Top Posts
Apr 13, 2008 at 2:32 pm
[…] Did Your Child Reach Her or His Gross Motor Milestones? Some parents note that their children had gross motor delays (Charlie did), while others said their child did not. Indeed, some parents whose children met all their gross and fine motor milestones then had other delays in social and communicative skills. […]
Last Week’s Top Posts
Apr 13, 2008 at 2:32 pm
[…] Did Your Child Reach Her or His Gross Motor Milestones? Some parents note that their children had gross motor delays (Charlie did), while others said their child did not. Indeed, some parents whose children met all their gross and fine motor milestones then had other delays in social and communicative skills. […]
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