Rater training is necessary to accurately evaluate fundamental motor skills among children with developmental disabilities (DD). The purpose of this pilot study was to examine the impact of an online rater training program for novice raters on scoring accuracy of the run and two-hand strike skills on the Test of Gross Motor Development-Third…

The present study aims to examine the effects of Brain Gym exercise on development of fundamental motor and social skills. Eighty-four children (Mage: 9.55±1.09 years) were selected and randomly assigned to two groups of 42: the Brain Gym and the control group. Participants in the Brain Gym group attended sixteen training sessions. The gross motor…

The purpose of this study was to explore potential effects of a 12-week therapeutic mentoring program targeting social, emotional, and behavioral concerns in 52 children and adolescents between 11 and 17 years of age. Self-reported scores on a norm-referenced behavioral questionnaire were tracked across the span of a mentoring program, and then…

Background: Physical literacy-focused afterschool activity programs (ASAPs) can be an effective strategy to improve children's health-related parameters. We sought to compare physical activity, body composition, aerobic capacity, and fundamental movement skills between physical literacy-focused ASAP and a standard recreational ASAP. Method: A…

Background: Irish school children have demonstrated poor proficiency in fundamental movement skills (FMS) and consistent with international literature, females and overweight children tend to be less skilled than males and non-overweight children. Interventions that are suitable for children of all abilities and which provide long-term…

It is widely accepted that children in Scotland, as in other high-income countries, are not engaging in sufficient moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA), the consequences of which can be adverse for health and wellbeing. In this paper, it is contended that active play (a form of gross motor or total body movement in which…

This meta-analysis synthesizes the literature on interventions for struggling readers in Grades 4 through 12 published between 1980 and 2011. It updates Scammacca et al.'s analysis of studies published between 1980 and 2004. The combined corpus of 82 study-wise effect sizes was meta-analyzed to determine (a) the overall effectiveness of reading…

With tightening school budgets and continued emphasis on core subject standardized testing, physical education often takes a backseat to academic areas that school administrators deem more important. Much time is spent using improvement strategies in the classroom that do not involve exercise. Two hundred eighty-five sixth to eighth grade students…

At the end of secondary education in The Netherlands, students have to pass a final examination, consisting of an internal school-based assessment and an external national assessment. According to the Dutch inspectorate, to ensure the quality of final examinations, the discrepancy between both assessments must be less than 0.5 points (on a scale…

Meta-analysis procedures were employed to synthesize findings of research for improving reading comprehension of students with learning disabilities published in the decade following previous meta-analytic investigations. Forty studies, published between 1995 and 2006, were identified and coded. Nearly 2,000 students served as participants.…

The authors report on a mixed-methods review of 24 studies that explores the predictive validity of dynamic assessment (DA). For 15 of the studies, they conducted quantitative analyses using Pearson's correlation coefficients. They descriptively examined the remaining studies to determine if their results were consistent with findings from the…

The primary goal of the Words Work (WW) early literacy initiative was to prepare diverse students to become successful learners in school. Four groups of students were followed over 6 years: students from traditional Head Start (HS) centers, students from augmented HS centers (WW students), students eligible for HS but not enrolled (waitlist or…

The inclusion of young children with disabilities has remained a function of the Head Start program since its inception in the 1960s when the United States Congress mandated that children with disabilities comprise 10% of the Head Start enrollment (Zigler & Styfco, 2000). Standardized, norm-referenced tests used to identify children with…

"Data collected from eligibility assessments need to be useful and connected across all areas of service delivery." The content and flow of information have enormous implications for practice. Professionals are challenged because they lack functional information needed to create useful goals and objectives, implement effective…

As part of a broad exploratory research project, both norm-referenced and criterion-referenced measures were utilized as child outcome measures for a group of 49 intellectually handicapped children aged from 12 to 48 months who participated in eary intervention programs. Findings suggested that criterion-referenced measures are more sensitive to…