Background: Specific learning experiences are vital for athletes to continuously interact with developing "knowledge of" the performance environment, through the refined design of representative learning contexts (ecological paradigm), and appropriate didactical interventions (constructivist paradigm). Although there is a…

Background: School-based physical education has been associated with a multitude of potential learning outcomes. Representatives of a public health perspective suggest that promoting physical activity in and outside the context of school is an important endeavour. While the importance of behavioural skill training to improve (motor) learning is…

This paper explores some key findings from the recent two-year evaluation of a national pilot to introduce Restorative Practices (RP) in Scottish schools. A Restorative approach emphasises the human wish to feel safe, to belong, to be respected and to understand and have positive relationships with others. It recognises the fundamental importance…

A handbook of approximately 160 skill activities, designed by the staff of the Perkins School for the deaf, multihandicapped students (ages 10 to 14) who are functioning on a preprimary level, is presented. The skill tasks are part of a prevocational program at the school in which the overall objectives are: to increase the attention span of each…

This study compared the adaptive behaviors of 20 autistic, 20 Down's syndrome, and 20 normal children matched on age equivalent adaptive behavior, gender, race, birth order, family size, and socioeconomic status. The autistic children displayed significant and pervasive deficits in the acquisition of adaptive social skills and greater variability…

Curriculum content for adolescents with behavioral disorders should emphasize academic learning as well as social and behavioral skill development. "Therapeutic academics" is proposed as a process of teaching academics that is therapeutic in its systematic focus on the behavioral and social needs of students. A therapeutic academic curriculum…

Sixteen individuals with autism and sixteen with Down's Syndrome, aged 10-29, were matched for verbal mental age. The groups' scores did not differ on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. However, the adaptive skills of Down's Syndrome individuals kept pace with mental age, while the skills of autistic subjects did not change. (Author/JDD)

During the first months after birth, a child's functions begin to emerge. By age three a child is expected to have mastered the basic tasks of (1) good vegetative functioning (management of drives and impulses involved in eating and elimination), (2) perceptual organization and familiarization with the home environment and skills to orient to a…