Motor planning is the ability to conceive, plan, and carry out a skilled, non-habitual motor act in the correct sequence from beginning to end. Incoming sensory stimuli must be correctly integrated in order to form the basis for appropriate, coordinated motor responses. The ability to motor plan is a learned ability which is generalized to all unfamiliar tasks so a child does not need to consciously figure out each new task he or she faces. The child with motor planning difficulties may be slow in carrying out verbal instructions and often appears clumsy in new tasks.

How Motor Planning Works

Motor planning is part of a group of skills that help us move our body the way we want to. There are different kinds of motor skills that we use over and over again throughout our lifetime to get things done.

Gross motor skills help us move our large muscles so we can perform actions like walking, jumping, and balancing. Fine motor skills help us move smaller muscles that control our hands, wrists, and feet. They’re key to smaller actions, like grasping a pencil or tying shoelaces. Coordination is how we organize all of our physical actions so that we move efficiently.

WHAT CAUSES MOTOR PLANNING DIFFICULTIES & DISORDERS Motor planning difficulties are caused by problems processing sensory information and poor neural connections in the brain. In order to have efficient motor planning, an individual must be able to organize sensory input from his body, have adequate body percept and be able to move around his environment. Difficulty with sensory processing can lead to poor motor planning for fine, gross, and oral motor tasks (such as handwriting, jumping, and forming words, respectively).