Enhancing executive function in children and adolescents can have significant positive impact on their current and future daily lives. Upregulation of executive function associated with motor skill acquisition suggests that motor learning scenarios provide valuable developmental opportunities to optimize executive function. The present systematic…

Background: Chewing dysfunction can have adverse effects on growth, development and quality of life. There is a lack of evidence-based consensus guidelines for sensorimotor intervention. To address this, we need to understand the current state of the science in clinical sensorimotor interventions for paediatric chewing dysfunction and…

Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) impacts the quality of life and ability to perform coordinated actions in 5% of school-aged children. The quality of body representations of individuals with DCD has been questioned, but never assessed. We hypothesize that children with DCD have imprecise body representations in the sensory and motor…

Background: Perceptual motor development is crucial during early childhood and not properly addressing it in physical education (PE) can be detrimental. Aim: To determine the effect of a South African curriculum-aligned PE intervention on the visual-motor integration (VMI), visual perception (VP) and motor coordination (MC) of 6-year-old children.…

Purpose: In the study, we investigated whether speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in India use practice and feedback conditions of motor learning principles (MLPs), including biofeedback, in dysphagia therapy in adults using a problem--solution approach. Method: Based on a literature review and clinical experience, we developed and validated a…

For over 40 years, the contextual interference effect in motor learning has been investigated. While the difference between levels of contextual interference experienced under blocked and random practice are well established, the difference in the levels of contextual interference experienced under serial and random practice is still ambiguous.…

In previous research, Canadian physiotherapists identified barriers to effective external focus promotion and recommended the delivery of a focus of attention workshop as a solution. Accordingly, the current research entailed the virtual delivery of such a workshop, consisting of asynchronous Website modules followed by a synchronous group…

Expectancies for success and autonomy support have been shown to facilitate motor learning and enhance motor performance. The purpose of the study was to examine whether we replicated (a) enhanced expectancies and autonomy support intervention enhanced motor skill learning in children, and (b) identified the underlying psychological mechanism.…

This dissertation describes a program of research encompassing three studies that focused on examining the effects of enhanced expectancies and perceptions of success on motor learning. OPTIMAL theory (Wulf & Lewthwaite, 2016) proposes that practice manipulations that enhance a learner's expectations for future successful outcomes lead to…

Movement is essential for learning. Previous research explored the relationship between movement and academic performance, however, evidence regarding the specific gross motor skills related to reading and spelling is lacking. The current study, therefore, investigated the effect a perceptual-motor intervention had on the relationship between…

Environments where children move about provide affordances that play a significant role in their development. This research presents the Affordances for Motor Behavior of Schoolchildren assessment tool, which aims to assess the interdependent systems, such as home, school, and sports activities, that can influence 6- to 10-year-old children's…

To harness the complexity of their high-dimensional bodies during sensorimotor development, infants are guided by patterns of freezing and freeing of degrees of freedom. For instance, when learning to reach, infants free the degrees of freedom in their arm proximodistally, that is, from joints that are closer to the body to those that are more…

Young children with HCP experience difficulties performing age-appropriate daily activities such as self-care and play. Research in neuroplasticity has shown that intensive, task-specific training in early development is ideal to maximize functioning in children with HCP. The aim of this study was to analyze the feasibility of a new manualized…

Purpose: The vocal auditory-motor control of individuals with hyperfunctional voice disorders was examined using a sensorimotor adaptation paradigm. Method: Nine individuals with hyperfunctional voice disorders and 9 individuals with typical voices produced sustained vowels over 160 trials in 2 separate conditions: (a) while experiencing gradual…

Developmental data suggested that mental simulation skills become progressively dissociated from overt motor activity across development. Thus, efficient simulation is rather independent from current sensorimotor information. Here, we tested the impact of bodily (sensorimotor) information on simulation skills of adolescents with Autism Spectrum…