Course talk:KIN355/2020 Projects

Body awareness refers to an individual’s capability to comprehend their own body position in relation to movement performance as well as how to produce those various movements. There are multiple concepts that come along with learning body awareness that contribute to early childhood development, one of which includes body concept. Within the first two years of childhood, infants show signs of body awareness in terms of representing and reflecting on themselves as individualistic, objective entities. Examples include recognizing themselves in the mirror or referring to themselves by name. Body awareness provides a foundation for future self-regulation, self-concept and self-identity (Brownell et al., 2007). That being said, the importance of a child’s development in body awareness as well as the concepts that come along are vital to motor movement and functioning skills. With time, children come across obstacles that they face every day such crawling around different obstacles, picking up or playing with objects. That being said, children must have the foundation of body awareness, in order to avoid or attain objects they are playing with. Children attempt to mediate the spatial environment and the relationships among objects within the environment in order to develop awareness of themselves as an objective entity existing and interacting with the external environment. The understanding of their independent self develops as the infant gains recognition of how to represent the body’s special and causal relations with the outside world (Piaget 1954; cited in Moore et al., 2007). The concept of ‘body concept’ is rather crucial with respect to physical movement action/planning in order to avoid hitting the couch or having the ability to pick up a Barbie Doll. Body concept is the ability for an individual to identify specific components of their body. From as young as nine months, infants reveal recognition to their noses and ears, to 18 months, where ears, hands and feet are now accumulated. By the age of eight-nine, children are able to identify all parts of their body, showing minimal error. Acquiring awareness of their body does not come autonomically, but alternatively with instruction. The learning process of body concept can come in through different forms, such as language. Teaching a child activities and games that facilitates body concept can equip them in future reference to understanding their body and functional movements. Games include ‘Simon Says’ where they are focusing on which body part to act upon. These types of games can reflect visual self-recognition, as it is the gold standard for identifying the development of body awareness (Brownell et al., 2007). Research on the body concept have shown that multisensory information is vital for the concept itself (Zmyj et al., 2011; cited in Filippetti et al., 2015) as well as the outward signals are important for maintaining cohesive and unitary representation of the body (Bahrick and Watson 1985; Rochat and Morgan 1995; Schmuckler 1996; Morgan and Rochat 1997; Reddy et al. 2007; cited in Filippetti et al., 2015). Moreover, infants can visually differentiate between visual and tactile stimuli when the visual information is in relation to the body (Filipetti et al., 2013; cited in Filipetti et al., 2015). As children grow older, with body awareness continually developing, they are able to participate in games that are more complex in motor skills. The study conducted by Moore et al., supported the idea of older infants performing well on tasks with themselves and with objects. In the younger group, performance was poorer when the self-task (child was restricting from object to move) followed the object task (distinct object was restricting from object to move), whereas the older children performed both tasks with no change in performance level. Because the older children were able to perform both tasks (self and with object) without any significance, this suggested that their sense of body concept and body awareness was much more developed as the older children had more experience with locomotion. (Moore et al., 2007). These results advocated for body awareness and body concept come hand in hand yet are developed enough to be considered separately. Aside from fine and gross motor development required in these activities, body awareness begins to decline with age (Brownell et al., 2007). A child must not only be able to acquire information about the toys/objects in order to plan appropriate responses. They must also identify themselves independently with respect to their environments and the objects in relation to their surroundings in order to plan for said responses (Brownell et al., 2007). A past study from Georgiou et al., examined the differences in body awareness and the interaction with everyday physical activity. It was shown that higher body awareness is associated with stronger physical performance in children. Physical fitness has already revealed numerous benefits, both psychologically and physiologically. Therefore, it is also vital for children to develop body concept for self-regulation of health-related behavior in early childhood development (Farb & Mehling, 2016).

Brownell, C. A., Zerwas, S., & Ramani, G. B. (2007). "so big": The development of body self-awareness in toddlers. Child Development, 78(5), 1426-1440. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01075.x

Farb, N., DOAB: Directory of Open Access Books, & Frontiers Books. (2017). Interoception, contemplative practice, and health. Place of publication not identified: Frontiers Media SA.

Filippetti, M. L., Lloyd-Fox, S., Longo, M. R., Farroni, T., & Johnson, M. H. (2015). Neural mechanisms of body awareness in infants. Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991), 25(10), 3779-3787. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhu261

Moore, C., Mealiea, J., Garon, N., & Povinelli, D. J. (2007). The development of body self-awareness. Infancy, 11(2), 157-174. doi:10.1111/j.1532-7078.2007.tb00220.x