For children with moderate or severe cerebral palsy (CP), a foundational early goal is independent sitting. Sitting offers additional opportunities for object exploration, play and social engagement. The achievement of sitting coincides with important milestones in other developmental areas, such as social engagement with others, understanding of…

This teaching tip focuses on using hand-clapping to teach content area material across the curriculum. We begin with a brief history of hand-clap songs, followed by a rationale for using them in content area literacy. Then, we describe the instructional lesson, share samples that resulted, and discuss lesson extensions. Our goal is to have…

An example of a stability movement course for preschool children is presented. (JMF)

The article describes tasks that promote perceptual motor coordination in handicapped students. An introductory section provides suggestions for implementation and charts the activities in terms of emphasis on visual tracking, visual discrimination and/or copying of forms, spatial body perception, fine motor coordination, tactile discrimination,…

The primary purpose of this study was to test the implication that perceptual-motor development training will increase school readiness at the kindergarten level. Sixty kindergarten children were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups and administered the following pretests: Stanford Early School Achievement Test, Boehm Test of Basic…

The physical development of the child from birth to the age of three is described. Exercises designed to increase motor coordination and strengthen muscles are outlined and illustrated. (JD)

Tested children's transfer of training in performance of coincidence-anticipation task. At an experimental apparatus, children attempted to intercept a fixed or moving target by pressing a button or by sliding a disk (the criterion task). Found that improved accuracy in intercepting the moving target by sliding the disk occurred only when children…

This publication contains speeches and discussions presented at the conference "Perceptual-Motor Development: Action with Interaction" held in Cincinnati, Ohio, October 1970. The conference, sponsored by the Physical Education Division of the American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, provided educators with the…

Evidence was found to indicate that training to improve the speed of saccadic eye movement (movement from one fixation point to another) also resulted in observable changes in batting performance among a sample group of high school girls. (MJB)

Reports on a longitudinal study of gross-motor development in 10 congenitally blind children during their first 3 years. Compared to developmental norms for sighted children, five full-term blind children showed slight delays in postural development but greater delays in locomotor development. Five preterm blind children showed major delays in all…

Discusses the renaissance of motor skill acquisition studies that are affording new insights into the processes by which infants and children learn to control their bodies. The article explains how studies are now focusing less on how children perform and more on how the components cooperate to produce stability or engender change, thus making…

This book presents a comprehensive and detailed theory of early human development based on the principles of dynamic systems theory. It raises fundamental questions about prevailing assumptions in the field and proposes a new theory of the development of cognition and action, unifying recent advances in dynamic systems theory with current research…

This book deals with the following areas: (a) basic motor development and readiness of the young child for movement activities, (b) learning and developmental theories commonly used in early childhood education, (c) instructional approaches for using movement as a learning modality, and (d) general educational implications which can be ascertained…

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…

Movement is a natural part of life, and body and mind should develop together. (JD)