Locomotor Skills and Motor Planning Explained (with School + IEP Context)

I’ve said it a million times before, but K is my first child. When he was little, I had absolutely nothing to compare things to. No previous parenting experience, no “this seems typical” reference point. Looking back now, some of those moments feel like obvious clues. But at the time, I had no idea what I was seeing.

One memory stands out. I posted a photo on Facebook of K wearing the cutest pair of little sunglasses. A friend commented, “My baby would never wear sunglasses in a million years!”

At the time I thought nothing of it. Some kids tolerate things, some don’t. Years later, I realized what was actually happening.

K wasn’t leaving the sunglasses on because he liked them. He left them on because he didn’t yet have the motor planning skills to take them off. He didn’t cry or protest (hello, lack of interoception!) but he also couldn’t remove them.

That realization hit me hard. So many of my early “why doesn’t he…” or “why can’t he…” questions had the same answer: delayed motor planning and delayed motor development. Another area where we saw delays was locomotion skills.

Locomotor skills are the movements that allow a child to move their body from one place to another—things like crawling, walking, running, hopping, and jumping. These skills are a major part of early child development, and they build the foundation for many other motor abilities.

Children with hypotonia (low muscle tone), like K, often experience delays in locomotor development. When muscles are weaker and motor planning is harder, skills like walking, running, and coordinated movement can take longer to develop.

Understanding what locomotor skills are—and how they develop—can help parents and teachers better recognize when a child may need support.

What Are Locomotor Skills?

Locomotor skills are movements that allow a person to move their body from one place to another. In child development, these skills are considered part of gross motor development and form the foundation for physical activity, play, and everyday movement.

Examples of locomotor skills include:

• Walking
• Running
• Jumping
• Hopping
• Skipping
• Galloping
• Crawling
• Leaping

You will often hear these referred to as fundamental locomotor skills because they are the building blocks for more complex movement patterns used in sports, recreation, and daily life.

Children develop locomotor skills gradually as their muscles strengthen, their balance improves, and their brains learn to coordinate movement. These skills also help build body awareness, coordination, and spatial understanding.

When locomotor development is delayed, children may struggle with things like playground activities, physical education, sports, or even basic movement tasks that other children seem to pick up naturally.

Locomotor Skills in Child Development

In early childhood development, locomotor skills are part of a larger group of abilities known as gross motor skills.

These skills allow children to explore their environment and participate in physical play. As children grow, they typically move through stages of locomotor development, beginning with movements like rolling and crawling and progressing to walking, running, jumping, and more coordinated movements.

Delays in locomotor development can happen for many reasons, including:

• hypotonia (low muscle tone)
• motor planning difficulties
• developmental delays
• neurological differences
• certain medical conditions

When locomotor skills are delayed, children may appear clumsy, avoid physical activities, tire easily, or struggle with balance and coordination.

For some children, these challenges become noticeable in preschool or early elementary school when activities start to involve more running, jumping, climbing, and coordination.

Types of Locomotor and Movement Skills

Movement skills are often divided into several categories.

Fundamental Locomotor Skills

These are the basic movements that allow a person to travel from one place to another.

Examples include:

• walking
• running
• hopping
• jumping
• skipping
• galloping
• sliding

These skills are the foundation for later physical activities and sports.

Stability Skills

Stability skills involve balance and control of the body.

Examples include:

• standing on one foot
• maintaining balance
• changing body positions
• controlling body posture while moving

These skills support locomotor development because balance is required for almost every movement.

Manipulative Skills

Manipulative skills involve movement combined with handling objects.

Examples include:

• kicking a ball
• catching or throwing while moving
• dribbling a basketball

These skills combine locomotor movement with coordination and timing.

Non-Locomotor Skills

Non-locomotor movements involve moving the body without traveling to a new location.

Examples include:

• bending
• twisting
• stretching
• swaying
• turning

While these movements do not involve traveling, they are still important for coordination and body awareness.

Locomotor Skills vs. Motor Planning

Locomotor skills and motor planning are closely related, but they are not the same thing.

• Locomotor skills refer to the physical movements used to travel from one place to another—walking, running, hopping, and similar actions.
• Motor planning, also called motor praxis, refers to the brain’s ability to plan and organize movements.

Motor planning involves:

• thinking about a movement
• organizing the steps needed
• coordinating the body to complete the action

Motor planning affects both gross motor skills and fine motor skills.

For example, motor planning is required for tasks like:

• putting on clothing
• using utensils
• handwriting
• building with blocks
• playing musical instruments

When motor planning is difficult, children may struggle to learn new movements or sequences of actions, even if they physically have the strength to perform them. This is why locomotor delays and motor planning challenges often appear together.

When Movement Isn’t Automatic

For many children, locomotor skills develop naturally. Kids run, jump, climb, and skip without thinking much about it. Their bodies and brains figure out the coordination automatically.

But for many of our disabled kids, movement is not automatic.

Things that other children do without thinking—jumping off a curb, running across the playground, hopping on one foot—may require real concentration and planning. Instead of their body simply doing the movement, they have to stop and think about each step.

They may be mentally working through things like:

• How do I move my feet?
• Where do I put my weight?
• How do I keep my balance?
• What happens when I land?

This extra mental load can make movement slower, harder, and more tiring.

It’s one of the reasons some children avoid playground activities or sports. It isn’t that they don’t want to participate. It’s that their brain and body are working much harder just to complete movements that come naturally to others.

Understanding this can help parents, teachers, and therapists approach locomotor delays with more patience and support. For many children, building these skills takes time, practice, and the right kind of encouragement.

Why Locomotor Skills Matter at School

Locomotor development affects more than just playground time.

In school, locomotor skills can impact:

• participation in physical education
• navigating the school building
• playground play and social interaction
• stamina and endurance
• coordination during classroom movement activities

Children who struggle with locomotor skills may avoid games, sports, or group play because those activities feel physically difficult or frustrating.

Over time, this can affect confidence and social participation as well.

Locomotor Skills and IEPs

When locomotor delays significantly impact a child’s ability to participate in school activities, they may become part of an IEP or 504 plan discussion.

Some children receive support through:

• occupational therapy
• physical therapy
• adapted physical education
• accommodations for physical participation

For example, an IEP might include goals related to:

• improving balance and coordination
• increasing endurance for physical activity
• developing specific gross motor skills
• improving motor planning abilities

These supports help children access the same school activities as their peers while building the skills they need over time.

How to Improve Locomotor Skills

Improving locomotor skills usually involves practice, movement, and opportunities for physical play.

Some ways to support locomotor development include:

• obstacle courses
• active playground play
• dance or gymnastics
• swimming
• martial arts
• balance activities
• physical education programs (list of Adaptive PE IEP Goals)

Children benefit most when movement activities are fun and pressure-free. Every child develops at their own pace, so progress may look different for each child.

A Personal Note from Our Family

K’s motor planning and locomotion skills have improved significantly over time, but he is still very delayed. When his seizures increased, we saw regression in some skills, which meant we had to work on rebuilding them again.

He’s also seventeen now. A playground is not exactly his idea of a fun afternoon, and that’s okay.

Instead, we focus on movement in ways that work for him. A few years ago we got a trampoline, and we now have an above-ground pool. Both have become great ways to practice movement and coordination in an environment that feels comfortable.

We’re still working on his motor planning and locomotion skills, just in ways that fit where he is now.