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 study uses three experiments with different kinds of training conditions to investigate the "easy-to-hard" principle, context interference conditions, and feedback effects for learning anticipatory skills in badminton. Experiment 1 (N = 60) showed that a training program that gradually increases the difficulty level has no advantage over the…

Perceptual motor programs (PMPs) are used widely in Australian schools. This study reports on an analysis of the information about the uses and the rationales for these programs drawn from the websites of Australian schools. Wide-ranging claims are made for the benefits of these programs for students with difficulties and for typically developing…

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…

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…

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)

Perception is a process by which simple and complex information (stimuli) is experienced. We gain information about how such stimulus inputs are experienced by a child, for example, by his responses or outputs. Outputs are in the form of vocalizations and motor acts. Thus, the perceptual process is frequently called perceptual-motor. But the…

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

The ability to attain and maintain a body position or balance is considered important in learning and performing motor skills. Static balance is defined as balance in which the body maintains equilibrium for one position; dynamic balance is described as maintaining equilibrium while the body is in motion or changing from one balanced position to…

This study continues the investigation of the general organizational plan used by good motor learners in acquiring a complex motor skill (tennis serve). The General Serve Problem Solving Model (GSPS), developed in earlier research, was utilized in an effort to improve and broaden it so that other types of learners may be studied and compared. Six…

The papers presented in this book deal with the general area of motor skill acquisition and development. In section one, the first paper presents an overview of what has come to be known as "man as an information-processing system." Attention is focused on the transformation that the sensory input undergoes during central nervous system…

Professional workers can assist parents of retarded infants by (1) helping them to recognize and cope with their feelings of guilt and despair, and (2) establishing a home program of exercises to allay the infant's inertia. Such exercises have been demonstrated by numerous investigators to be of positive value in improvement of motor performance.…

Summarizes research regarding psychomotor skill development in technical education and offers suggestions for teaching machine use skills. Four tables display data from various researchers' studies under headings for models for classifying the psychomotor domain, knowledge of results, type of feedback, and type of video feedback. (MF)

This textbook on basic movement activities for children in the primary grades is divided into two sections. The first section presents methods of evaluating the physical strengths and weaknesses of individual children. The seven tests outlined and illustrated provide the teacher with the means for assessing each child's abilities and potential for…