Examined infants' ability to retrieve an object from atop a slightly larger object. Found that even 5-month-olds could retrieve objects close in size and fully contiguous with their bases when demands on reaching skill were reduced. Proposed that when they fail this task, it is because they lack the skill to reach the top object without…

Teaching methods to develop the handwriting skills of children who have low vision are discussed. Difficulties are seen to result from problems with motor skills, visual factors, and mechanical difficulties. Stressed throughout is adaptation of the handwriting program to the particular needs of the individual child. (DB)

The acquisition of movement skills in American Sign Language was examined longitudinally in young children, one deaf and eight hearing, of deaf parents. Although production accuracy did not improve over the 5 to 14 months of the study's duration, the number and complexity of movements produced by the children did increase. Contacting action was…

Adaptive motor actions require prior knowledge of instrumental contingencies. With practice, these actions can become highly automatic in nature. However, the molecular and anatomical substrates mediating these related forms of learning are not understood. In the present study, we used in situ hybridization to measure the mRNA levels of two…

Discusses a study in which Jewish and Arab Israeli children attending pre-kindergarten to eighth grade were required to copy a vertical and a horizontal line, and also in which the intelligence of partial samples was assessed. It was found that starting from the right was correlated with higher intelligence for Arabs and with lower intelligence…

The relationship between sensorimotor performance and communicative ability in 18 autistic children (40 to 108 months old) was studied. The children were administered the Means-End and Operational Causality scales from the Ordinal Scales of Psychological Development. In addition, the Ss were assessed on four measures of verbal and nonverbal…

It has been hypothesized that the use of techniques to enhance motor skill acquisition and retention in the elderly may retard the onset of retirement, result in the continuation of a productive professional career, allow continued participation in recreational activities, and possibly slow the decline in physiological functions that normally…

One of the most serious problems associated with aging concerns the decline in perceptual-motor skills, due to illness and/or lack of use based on poor motivation. Investigations of training programs to improve hand-eye coordination have yielded mixed results. A study was conducted to examine the effects of a training program to improve hand-eye…

Discussed is use of the trampoline to remediate perceptual handicaps in learning disabled children. (DB)

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,…

During the 1980-1981 school year, the Medford, Massachusetts, Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title I program, Project LEAP, provided services in reading and language skills to approximately 400 students in grades kindergarten through six. Additional program components included instruction in perceptual/motor skills, career awareness (for…