Do motor skills impact on language development between 18 and 30 months of age?

Relationships between Motor Skills and Academic Achievement in School-Aged Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

“…Moreover, the results showed that GMSs and FMSs are consistently and positively associated with students’ language performance. Developing motor skills and sensorimotor experience can be conductive to acquire some linguistic categories, including verbs or spatial vocabulary (e.g., locative adverbs and prepositions, and verbs indicating movements in a direction) [ 109 ]. The Piagetian constructivism perspective is that children learn and create by actively interacting with their environment through gross motor (e.g., walking) and fine motor (e.g., grasping) activities [ 110 ].…”

Unimodal versus bimodal auditory stimulation in inner ear malformations: Cognitive, language, and motor performance

“…In children with ABI, Ertugrul et al 21 found a linear correlation among manual control, balance, speech perception, and language skills. In the literature, there were several studies indicating correlations between fine‐ and gross motor development and language (e.g., vocabulary) performance in children 22,23 . According to a systematic review study by van der Fels and colleagues, 24 weak to strong associations were found between some motor (fine manual control, manual dexterity) and cognitive (visual processing, short and long‐term memory) skills in children with typical development.…”

Relationship between fine/gross motor skills and language and math development in Colombian Caribbean children: A study in Barranquilla

“…More specifically, regarding the language domain, Houwen et al (2016) presented evidence of strong and positive relations between the motor, cognitive and language domains, which is also supported by Campo's (2010) study with Colombian children aged 3–7 years. This relation could be explained because motor development and sensorimotor experiences can help to acquire some linguistic categories, such as verbs or spatial vocabulary (e.g., locative adverbs and prepositions, and verbs indicating movements in a direction) (Andaló et al, 2022).…”

“…More specifically, regarding the language domain, Houwen et al (2016) presented evidence of strong and positive relations between the motor, cognitive and language domains, which is also supported by Campo's (2010) study with Colombian children aged 3-7 years. This relation could be explained because motor development and sensorimotor experiences can help to acquire some linguistic categories, such as verbs or spatial vocabulary (e.g., locative adverbs and prepositions, and verbs indicating movements in a direction) (Andal o et al, 2022). As children's motor development changes and matures through locomotion (e.g., crawling 'gross motor skill') or fine motor skills (e.g., grasping), new learning can emerge because children have new opportunities to interact with objects and their caregivers as well as to explore their environment (González et al, 2019).…”

“…As children's motor development changes and matures through locomotion (e.g., crawling 'gross motor skill') or fine motor skills (e.g., grasping), new learning can emerge because children have new opportunities to interact with objects and their caregivers as well as to explore their environment (González et al, 2019). For example, a study with very young children observed that fine-and gross-motor coordination skills predicted spatial vocabulary comprehension at 30 months (Andal o et al, 2022). Thus, these authors suggest that motor coordination skills play a role in language acquisition between the second and third years.…”