The scores of 15 children (ages 5-10) with learning disabilities on the Test of Visual Perceptual Skills and the Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration revealed that visual perception and visual motor skills are separate, though related, functions and that visual motor scores were significantly lower than visual perception scores. (JDD)

Sixteen school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 16 age-matched controls were tested for immediate recall of digits presented visually, auditorily, or audiovisually. Recall tasks compared speaking and pointing response modalities. SLI children showed small recency effects as well as an unusually poor recall when visually…

Eighteen science activities that help children learn to use their senses are described. Multisensory activities and single-sensory activities are provided. Each activity includes a list of materials, the procedure, information for the teacher, questions, and a vocabulary list of words often used by children to describe what is taking place. (KR)

A perceptual motor approach to learning phonics is presented in this teaching guide which includes a screening test and 50 learning games encompassing a wide array of phonics skills. Directionality, gross-motor skills, sensory-motor skills, and auditory and visual perceptual skills may be introduced to the children and taught during the games…

The article describes ways in which children can develop perceptual motor coordination while engaging in activities and games wearing halloween masks with taped-over eyes. (CD)

Dance movement instruction was shown to enhance spatial awareness in 16 visually impaired elementary students. Initiating such instruction early in life might be beneficial in treating movement inhibitions. Large-muscle and cardiovascular activities in physical education programs are complemented by the positioning, sequencing, movement, and…

Looks at vision problems in the areas of visual acuity, visual skills efficiency, and visual perceptual-motor development, and points out symptoms of each that children might exhibit. Suggests things teachers might do to help. (FL)

A sample of 63 gifted elementary-school students was administered the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test and the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration. Group results revealed no significant differences between the two tests, that they did correlate significantly, and that younger students had advanced visual-motor development when tested…

The Child Development Program at John Adams School in North Brunswick, New Jersey, was designed to be an immediate intervention for children with learning problems in the early elementary grades. This two-volume guide describes the work done in the program and how the program can be replicated. The first book details characteristics of the…

Twenty children, aged 7-12, with severe visual impairments completed a series of visual tasks requiring interpretation, analysis, manipulation, and visual motor coordination. Findings are discussed in terms of total performance, individual task performance, performance of younger versus older children, and performance of good versus poor readers.…

Graphomotor output was assessed in children with attentional problems using the Repeated Patterns Test (RPT). Forty-eight subjects, ages 8 to 13, who met standard criteria for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), participated, of whom 24 had primarily Inattentive Type and 24 had Combined Type ADHD. Both groups had intact visuomotor…

Perceptual-motor functioning is a cyclic process involving: (1) organizing incoming sensory stimuli with past or stored perceptual information; (2) making motor (internal) decisions based on the combination of sensory (present) and perceptual (past) information; (3) executing the actual movement (observable act) itself; and (4) evaluating the act…

The purpose of this study was to attempt to train the horizontality concept in a group of first graders who were non-operational on the horizontality concept but transitional on what Piaget has termed the precursor concepts of distance and length conservation. There were two groups of subjects (training and control), all of whom had failed a…

Discusses activities related to the kinesthetic sense, the perception of balance, and the perception of body position in space. (SL)

Before discussing the development of skills for playing elementary school physical education games, this document lists basic assumptions about children, movement education, games, and elementary school physical education. Four basic concepts, which are common to all team games, are identified: (1) use of personal and moving space and finding…