This study examined the accuracy and stability of oral motor control in 20 adults and 20 children. Although the children were less accurate and less stable, adults and children exhibited similar variability in their generalized motor program. Results are discussed within the framework of a schema model of motor control, especially the strategic…

Reduction in performance variability is characteristic of skill acquisition during childhood. Less understood is the role of variability in adaptive skill. The purpose of this study was to determine children's capacity for adapting to changing task requirements. Children ages 4-14 years and adults rode a stationary ergometer at different levels of…

Research focused on human motor development, learning, and control has been a prominent feature in the Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport (RQES) since it was first published in 1930. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the papers in the RQES that demonstrate the journal's contributions to the study of motor development,…

What value is there in effective practice regimes if these same regimes do not, in themselves, engage the learner to continue to practice? This question was discussed in the context of two practice schedules that have been shown to be effective in studies of motor learning. But recent evidence has found these practice schedules to be either…

By three to four months of age, most babies placed on their tummies on a safe, warm surface push down with their arms and raise their chests, so that they can turn their heads to look about at the world around them. By five months, babies stretch both feet and hands upward in order to swipe at interesting mobiles placed overhead. At seven to nine…

Conductive education (CE) is an educational approach for children with cerebral palsy. This paper describes the history of conductive education, and the characteristics of current programs that exist in many countries. The underlying principles and the unique techniques used in CE programs are described. These include the role of the conductor or…

Purpose: The ontogeny of mandibular control is important for understanding the general neurophysiologic development for speech and alimentary behaviors. Prior investigations suggest that mandibular control is organized distinctively across speech and nonspeech tasks in 15-month-olds and adults and that, with development, these extant forms of…

Two years ago, the rapid retirement of the "baby boomer artisans" in vast numbers threatened to erode the competitiveness of Japanese manufacturers (i.e., the 2007 problem). This study proposes a practical process for extracting skills and designing a training system, to accelerate the learning of skills in production fields by younger…

Examined the relationship of newborns' 1-minute Apgar scores to their 8-month Bayley mental and motor scores and to 8-month classifications of their development as normal, suspect, or abnormal. Also investigated relationships between Apgar scores and race, longevity, and birth weight. (JMB)

The specificity of training principle from exercise physiology was tested in a motor skills learning context. (Author/JA)

The paper describes a program in which 11 dyslexic students (grades 7-8) participated in exercises designed to return the brain to its intended wholeness of function. Students were asked to contract certain specified major muscles while performing a speaking or reading task. Corrective exercises were then performed to use both brain hemispheres.…

This study found that both motor abilities and learning abilities are involved in the determination of Animal House performance. (EK)

Studies the extent to which psychometric and Piagetian scales correlate during infancy and also explores the nomological networks of these scales and the degree to which their networks are similar. (LLK)