Different individuals learn different solutions to the same perceptual-motor task regardless of the fact that they may undergo the same practice conditions. In the current study, we characterized individual solutions to a perceptual-motor task. Eighteen self-declared right-handed participants were requested to intercept a moving target controlling…

Longitudinal measurement enables the examination of behavioral or psychological change. One approach to examining longitudinal measurements is the use of latent growth curve modeling (LGCM). This approach affords the assessment of inter- and intraindividual change. Yet, this approach likely is underused in exercise science. The purpose of the…

Learning to descend stairs requires motor and cognitive capacities on the part of infants and opportunities for practice and assurance of safety offered by caregivers. The American Academy of Pediatrics prescribes the age strategy to teach toddlers to safely descend stairs but without much consideration for individual differences in infants'…

Motor learning principles guide treatment of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Previous studies found children to benefit from higher-intensity conditions; however, they did not control for the total amount of therapy time. The aims of the article are to examine the effects of high versus low treatment frequency in intervention for CAS in…

In executing purposeful actions, adults select sufficient and necessary limbs. But infants often move goal-irrelevant limbs, suggesting a developmental process of motor specialization. Two experiments with 9- and 12-month-olds revealed gradual decreases in extraneous movements in non-acting limbs during unimanual actions. In Experiment 1,…

Impaired motor cognition may underpin empathy problems in autism. The actions and feelings questionnaire (AFQ), designed to examine individual differences in motor cognition, was completed fully by 1391 adults, of whom 326 reported a diagnosis of an autism spectrum condition (ASC). A confirmatory factor analysis supported a 3 factor model. The AFQ…

Previous research has shown an association between children's development of psychosocial and motor skills. This study evaluated the development of these skills in 301 three-year-old deaf and hard of hearing children (M: 37.8 months) and considered a range of possible predictors including gender, birth weight, age at first fitting with hearing…

A description is given of an ongoing collaborative research effort consisting of a series of studies with 3- to 5-year-old children, designed for the purpose of: (1) identifying factors contributing to motor learning/performance during the development years, i.e., psychological, sociological, and experiential variables; (2) determining the…

A review of research on the effects of aging on motor performance provided evidence that age-induced changes within the central nervous system, particularly in the functioning of the non-dominant cortical hemisphere, result in diminished fluid abilities. The loss was most clearly manifested behaviorally as a decreased capacity to perform…

This study examined the impact of play context on the speech of mothers and children. It was expected that the types of speech produced by both children and mothers when they played with toys that involve fine motor manipulation would differ from the speech produced when they played with toys that involve gross motor play. Sixteen children (eight…

Examined the impact of 2 environmental factors--social class and family risk levels--and 2 biological factors--intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) and medical risk--on the cognitive and motor development of 175 preterm infants. Family risk, early medical risk, and the interaction of family risk and IVH were found to be significant predictors of…

This paper reports on the development and use of several tools designed to sensitize caregivers to the fact that infants are very different from one another and that caregiving needs to be tailored to the styles and needs of each child. Four approaches were used: (1) having caregivers rate the infants regularly on a small number of rating scales…