Search results for "Motor Skill"
showing 10 items of 254 documents
Early motor development and later language and reading skills in children at risk of familial dyslexia.
2005
Relationships between early motor development and language and reading skills were studied in 154 children, of whom 75 had familial risk of dyslexia (37 females, 38 males; at-risk group) and 79 constituted a control group (32 females, 47 males). Motor development was assessed by a structured parental questionnaire during the child's first year of life. Vocabulary and inflectional morphology skills were used as early indicators of language skills at 3 years 6 months and 5 years or 5 years 6 months of age, and reading speed was used as a later indicator of reading skills at 7 years of age. The same subgroups as in our earlier study (in which the cluster analysis was described) were used in th…
Preschool executive control on the Shape School task: Measurement considerations and utility.
2011
Executive functions (EF) necessary for purposeful goal-directed activities undergo rapid change and development during the preschool years. However, of the few psychometrically valid measures of EF suitable for use with preschoolers, information on task sensitivity and predictive validity is scant. The neurodevelopmental correlates of early executive difficulties are also largely unknown. In this study, the discriminant and predictive validity of the recently developed Shape School task (Espy, Bull, Martin, & Stroup, 2006) was examined with data from a regional sample of 209 preschool children at age 4 years. A 2-tiered measurement approach was used, with task completion examined in additio…
Is karate effective in improving postural control?
2012
Background: Performing complex motor skills, such as the ones performed by karate athletes, requires a great sense of balance. Because the posturo-kinetic performance seems to be improved by sport practice, especially by sports involving a lot of posturokinetic activities, the aim of this review was to critically analyse the scientific literature in order to appraise whether any positive correlation between karate and improved postural control is scientifically supported. Material/Methods: The online search engines Scirus and Medline were used for generating the data. A comprehensive literature search was conducted based on the following keywords: “karate”, “postural control” and “body sway…
Clumsiness in Adolescence: Educational, Motor, and Social Outcomes of Motor Delay Detected at 5 Years
1994
This paper reports the follow-up at age 15 of a group of children who were diagnosed at age 5 as having delayed motor development. The group of children who were clumsy and the control group still differed in motor performance 10 years later: 46% of the members of the early motor delay group were classified as different from the control group on motor and perceptual tasks. The remainder made up an intermediate group that could not be clearly distinguished from the other groups. Adolescents with stable motor problems had fewer social hobbies and pastimes and had lower academic ambitions for their future than the controls, although the lower academic ambitions also reflect their lower academi…
Osteogenesis imperfecta: a clinical study of the first ten years of life.
1992
One hundred twenty-seven children with osteogenesis imperfecta (O.I.) were studied during the first 10 years of life. According to Sillence, 40 patients were assigned to type I, 39 to type III, and 48 to type IV O.I. Centiles for height, weight, and the annual number of fractures could be established for the different types of O.I. The development of the skeletal changes could be documented for the different forms of the disease. At birth, the skeletal changes were significantly more severe in type III than in type IV patients. During the first 10 years of life the number of fractures, extent of skeletal deformities, and growth retardation did not differ between types III and IV. Only fract…
Motor Competence and Health-related Fitness of School-Age Children: A Two-Year Latent Transition Analysis
2021
PURPOSE The aims of this study were twofold: 1) to identify latent physical performance profiles of motor competence (MC) and cardiorespiratory (CF) and muscular fitness (MF) among school-age children and 2) explore transition probabilities in physical performance profiles over a 2-yr period. METHODS The present sample comprised 1148 (583 girls, 565 boys) elementary school students (baseline Mage = 11.27 ± 0.32), and data were collected annually (equal intervals) over a period of 2 yr which resulted in a total of three measurements. The measures used were the throwing-catching combination test, 5-leaps and two-legged jumps from side-to-side test (MC), 20-meter shuttle run test (CF), and cur…
High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation to both primary motor cortices improves unimanual and bimanual dexterity.
2017
While most research on brain stimulation with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) targets unimanual motor tasks, little is known about its effects on bimanual motor performance. This study aims to investigate the effects of tDCS on unimanual as well as bimanual motor dexterity. We examined the effects of bihemispheric anodal high-definition tDCS (HD-atDCS) on both primary motor cortices (M1) applied concurrent with unimanual and bimanual motor training. We then measured the effects with the Purdue Pegboard Test (PPT) and compared them to a sham stimulation. Between a pretest and posttest, 31 healthy, right-handed participants practiced the PPT on three consecutive days and receiv…
Practice effects on visuomotor and problem-solving tests by children.
2001
Practice effects on a visuomotor test (the Developmental Test of Visuo-Motor Integration), a timed visual discrimination test (the Underlining Test), and two problem-solving tests (the Porteus Mazes Test and the Tower of Hanoi Test) were analyzed. Children of two age groups ( Ms: 7.7 and 11.6 yr.) were chosen to study the effect of age on practice effects. The tests were repeated nine times with test-retest intervals of 2 mo. The Developmental Test of Visuo-Motor Integration showed no practice effects, while the Porteus Mazes Test, the Underlining Test, and the Tower of Hanoi Test showed significant practice effects. Practice effects were larger for the older age group on all the tests, ex…
Technition: When Tools Come Out of the Closet
2020
People are ambivalently enthusiastic and anxious about how far technology can go. Therefore, understanding the neurocognitive bases of the human technical mind should be a major topic of the cognitive sciences. Surprisingly, however, scientists are not interested in this topic or address it only marginally in other mainstream domains (e.g., motor control, action observation, social cognition). In fact, this lack of interest may hinder our understanding of the necessary neurocognitive skills underlying our appetence for transforming our physical environment. Here, we develop the thesis that our technical mind originates in perhaps uniquely human neurocognitive skills, namely, technical-reas…
Computer Games and Fine Motor Skills
2012
The study seeks to determine the influence of computer games on fine motor skills in young adults, an area of incomplete understanding and verification. We hypothesized that computer gaming could have a positive influence on basic motor skills, such as precision, aiming, speed, dexterity, or tremor. We examined 30 habitual game users (F/M – 3/27; age range 20–25 years) of the highly interactive game Counter Strike, in which players impersonate soldiers on a battlefield, and 30 age- and gender-matched subjects who declared never to play games. Selected tests from the Vienna Test System were used to assess fine motor skills and tremor. The results demonstrate that the game users scored apprec…