Details are presented regarding the essential elements of an effective early childhood physical education curriculum. Components include movement awareness, fundamental locomotor skills, fundamental nonlocomotor skills, fundamental manipulative skills, and health-related fitness. (CB)

Observed drawing by toddlers and preschoolers using primary and standard markers, pencils, and crayons to determine the influence of implement diameter on children's drawing products, performances, and preferences. The relationship between drawing and early home manipulative experience was also investigated. Confirmed findings of previous studies…

The conceptual categories that children have developed in their second year were studied in five experiments using object manipulation tasks. Subjects included 152 children from 18 to 31 months of age. These very young children had formed global conceptions of many domains of objects. (SLD)

Two experiments used object-manipulation tasks to examine whether one- to two-year-olds form superordinate-like categories by attending to object parts. Findings indicated that 14- and 18-month-olds behaved systematically toward categories with different, but not matching, parts. Without part differences, none formed superordinate categories.…

Discusses the development of the human hand from birth to age three as it contributes to the formation of human personality. Considers how parallels in eye, hand, brain, and motor skill development portray the evolving complexity and adaptation of the human grasp and illustrate Montessori theories about the relationship between physical experience…

The experiments examined qualitative and quantitative changes in the dynamics of learning a novel motor skill (roller ball task) as a function of the manipulation of a control parameter (initial ball speed). The focus was on the relation between the rates of change in performance over practice time and the changing time scales of the evolving…

This study examined the role of perceptions of task difficulty in relation to self-perceptions of ability, intrinsic value, attainment value, and performance. Seventy-nine 8th graders completed surveys prior to task instruction and after the last practice session. Two days later, they completed a skill test. Participants who perceived the Lunastix…

The smaller size and lower strength level of children may indicate that adaptations of sport-type games, such as basketball, are necessary to maximize skill performance. Children between the ages of 9.0 and 12.7 years were given two subtests of the Alliance for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation Skills Test, the Speed Pass and Front Shot.…

The purpose of this study was to longitudinally examine the development of symbolic play in 2-year-old Japanese infants. The subjects were four children who were individually tested once a month from the age of 12 to 24 months in laboratory settings. Assessment materials consisted of three sets of miniature toys, a doll and junk objects. Each set…

Two studies involving stereotypic hand gazing revealed that: (1) a dramatically increased therapy program substantially reduced a 35.4 month-old boy's hand gazing and augmented his toy manipulation skills; and (2) both glasses and toys effectively reduced hand gazing by two visually impaired 30.3 and 17.9 month-old children. (Author/CB)

Sixth grade pupils from a junior high school in Southeastern Ohio were given the OWVI. No significant differences among social classes were found in work values. Significant differences were found between boys and girls in three work values--Altruism, Object Orientation, and Solitude. However, similarities outweighed differences between the value…

Consistently over the three test situations, initial left-handedness' gives way during the third quarter of the first year to right-hand dominance. The way in which the shift occurs lends support to a maturational, rather than a learning or social pressure explanation of lateral asymmetry. (Author/CB)

Forty right-handed high school and college students were trained to operate calculators with their left hands. Results suggest the possibility of improving office machine operating speed, without significant loss of accuracy, by instructing trainees to operate the keyboard with the alternate hand while recording information with the dominant hand.…

Examines the issue of object sorting in early infancy. Forty-eight infants at 6, 9, and 12 months were presented with eight sets of small, manipulable objects. At six months, selective manipulation was absent; at nine months, 94 percent of the infants sequentially touched similar objects and at 12 months 100 percent did so. (Author/DB)