Gross motor skills are movements that utilize the large muscles of the body. These skills allow children to sit, walk, crawl, throw and catch a ball and to stay balanced while riding a bike. Gross motor skills typically develop before fine motor skills and can include rolling over and lifting one's head. Over time, a child's coordination with his gross motor skills improves and it will continue to given a healthy lifestyle through adulthood.
Fine motor skills involve the movement of smaller muscles like the eyes, hands, feet, toes, tongue and lips. These skills can involve the manipulating of play dough, the tearing of paper into small strips, cutting with scissors, finger painting, and hand and foot eye coordination. Fine motor skills also involve the sensation of touch and how the brain perceives the objects touched. A term often used to describe fine motor skills is dexterity.
Some consider graphomotor skills a subset of fine motor skills, but others believe that the ability to hold and manipulate a writing utensil falls into another category. The development of strong graphomotor skills requires a connection between the brain and the fingers, developed finger and hand muscles, and the muscle memory of where the fingers should hold the writing utensil. A student who is strong at drawing and weak at writing may have developed fine motor skills without having yet developed graphomotor skills.
Perceptual motor skills can refer to any motor skills whether it is gross motor skills, fine motor skills or graphomotor skills. For a child to fully develop any motor skills, they must become perceptual motor skills. This means that the child has internalized skills and a connection now exists between the particular action and the brain. A child who has played tennis may play badminton well because they are similar motor skills and that skill has already developed a connection to the brain.