Compare and contrast the maturational and cultural perspectives of the development of infants' gross motor skills, using empirical studies to support your argument

Gross motor skills are the basic movements infants acquired (birth-24months). These include reflexes, balancing, crawling, standing and walking. Motor study is important in understanding infant development for three reasons. Firstly, infants devote around half of their waking hours, around 5/6 hours, towards motor behaviour (Adolph & Joh, 2007), necessitating the implications of motor acquisition for other behaviours (Clearfield, 2011). Secondly, infants have limited capability to elaborate on their developmental experience with language; therefore movements are the most reliable measure of development. Lastly, and most importantly, “movement is behaviour” (Adolph & Berger, 2005; p.223); behaviour derives from action; therefore (depending on the area(s) of study) observation of movements should be the primary observation for psychologists. Two perspectives investigate infant movements: maturational theory (MT) explains motor development as milestone acquisitions in relation to body growth, whereas cultural view (CV) explains it in cultural-contextual terms. Despite inherent differences, they can be used interactively in applied practice by paediatricians to assess the health of different infants’ motor development contextually.