quantum in young children, whether we consider movements of the body
as a whole, fundamental movements of large limbs, or finer accessory
motions, is amazing. Nearly every external stimulus is answered by a
motor response. Dresslar[5] observed a thirteen months' old baby for
four hours, and found, to follow Preyer's classification, impulsive or
spontaneous, reflex, instinctive, imitative, inhibitive, expressive,
and even deliberative movements, with marked satisfaction in rhythm,
attempts to do almost anything which appealed to him, and almost
inexhaustible efferent resources. A friend has tried to record every
word uttered by a four-year-old girl during a portion of a day, and
finds nothing less than verbigerations. A teacher noted the activities
of a fourteen-year-old boy during the study time of a single school
day[6], with similar results.

Lindley[7] studied 897 common motor automatisms in children, which he
divided into 92 classes: 45 in the region of the head, 20 in the feet
and legs, 19 in the hands and fingers. Arranged in the order of
frequency with which each was found, the list stood as follows:
fingers, feet, lips, tongue, head, body, hands, mouth, eyes, jaws,
legs, forehead, face, arms, ears. In the last five alone adolescents
exceeded children, the latter excelling the former most in those of
head, mouth, legs, and tongue, in this order. The writer believes that
there are many more automatisms than appeared in his returns.

School life, especially in the lower grades, is a rich field for the
study of these activities. They are familiar, as licking things,
clicking with the tongue, grinding the teeth, scratching, tapping,
twirling a lock of hair or chewing it, biting the nails (Berillon's
onychophagia), shrugging, corrugating, pulling buttons or twisting
garments, strings, etc., twirling pencils, thumbs, rotating, nodding