Chapter $2$: Theoretical Perspectives in Motor Development

The perception$-$action approach is a theoretical perspective of affordances and body scaling that should be interesting to practitioners. The fundamental notions in that perspective are useful to practitioners in designing or adapting learning environment for students or clients. Recall that an affordance is the function an environmental object provides an individual.

A sledgehammer is designed to drive spikes, remove walls, and so on$,$ but it affords these activities only to individuals who are big and strong enough to swing it$.$ The definition or purpose of an object can be very different from what it affords a user because the function of an object to that user depends on the interaction between the object and the characteristics of the user. The notion of body scaling is closely related to the concept of affordances because scaling an object to the size and strength of a user might afford an action that would otherwise be impossible if the object weren$$t scaled to the user$$s body. Making a smaller, lighter sledgehammer would allow a smaller user to swing it$.$