Search results for "Motor skill"

The relationship between motor timing, reaction time and academic achievements in primary school children.

2017

Aim: Recent studies have reported a correlation between motor skills and school performance, which is different according to the type of motor ability or academic subject examined (Fernandes et al, 2016; Bellafiore et al., 2016). The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between motor timing, reaction time and achievements in mathematics and Italian in sedentary and active children. Methods: Seventy-eight children (8.55±1.43 years old, 28.93±5.74 kg weight, 126.54±4.74 cm height and 19.30±2.62 kg/m2 BMI) were randomly recruited by a primary school of Palermo, 68% of them practiced a sport outside the academic hours. The motor timing was measured with the finger and foot tapping …

Effects of a physical education program on the development of early literacy abilities in preschool children

2016

Introduction Several studies showed a relationship between physical activity and cognition in school-aged children (Carson et al 2015). The aim of this study was to analyse whether the amount and frequency of a physical education (PE) program affected the early reading and writing skills in preschool children. Methods This study involved 189 children (age: 4.62 ± 0.97 years; height: 107.83 ± 7.82 cm, body weight: 19.84 ± 4.95 kg) of 8 Palermo kindergartens who were randomly divided in a control group (C, n= 29), a 1-intervention group (I-1, n= 120) and a 2-intervention group (I-2, n= 40). I-1 and I-2 children performed a PE program of 16-week length for 4 and 10 hours/week, respectively (to…

Learning and motor and mental health profiles in pupils with Borderline Intellectual Functioning and Average Intellectual Functioning

2018

There is a lack of research addressing the study of the Borderline Intellectual Functioning (BIF) in school-aged population. In children and adolescents with BIF high rates of school complaints, movement impairments and mental health disorders have been demonstrated. This study aims at comparing learning, motor and mental health profiles showed by pupils with BIF and pupils with Average Intellectual Functioning (AIF). Participants were 19 children with BIF and 19 with AIF. Learning, motor and mental health profiles were measured by multiple tests. Results show that pupils with BIF showed lower comprehension and decoding reading abilities, lower word and non-word reading as well as lower mat…

The categorization of amateur cyclists as research participants: findings from an observational study.

2018

Sampling bias is an issue for research involving cyclists. The heterogeneity of cyclist populations, on the basis of skill level and riding purpose, can generate incorrect inferences about one specific segment of the population of interest. In addition, a more accurate categorization would be helpful when physiological parameters are not available. This study proposes using self-reported data to categorize amateur cyclist types by varying skill levels and riding purposes, therefore improving sample selection in experimental studies. A total of 986 cyclists completed an online questionnaire between February and October 2016. Two-step cluster analyses were performed to generate distinct group…

A probabilistic approach to learning a visually grounded language model through human-robot interaction

2010

A Language is among the most fascinating and complex cognitive activities that develops rapidly since the early months of infants' life. The aim of the present work is to provide a humanoid robot with cognitive, perceptual and motor skills fundamental for the acquisition of a rudimentary form of language. We present a novel probabilistic model, inspired by the findings in cognitive sciences, able to associate spoken words with their perceptually grounded meanings. The main focus is set on acquiring the meaning of various perceptual categories (e. g. red, blue, circle, above, etc.), rather than specific world entities (e. g. an apple, a toy, etc.). Our probabilistic model is based on a varia…

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…

Development of perceived competence, tactical skills, motivation, technical skills, and speed and agility in young soccer players

2015

The objective of this 1-year, longitudinal study was to examine the development of perceived competence, tactical skills, motivation, technical skills, and speed and agility characteristics of young Finnish soccer players. We also examined associations between latent growth models of perceived competence and other recorded variables. Participants were 288 competitive male soccer players ranging from 12 to 14 years (12.7 ± 0.6) from 16 soccer clubs. Players completed the self-assessments of perceived competence, tactical skills, and motivation, and participated in technical, and speed and agility tests. Results of this study showed that players' levels of perceived competence, tactical skill…

Validation of the swimming competence questionnaire for children.

2020

Two studies were employed to test the reliability and validity of the Swimming Competence Questionnaire (SCQ) among primary school children. Study 1 was a cross-sectional survey in 4959 primary school children. Study 2 was a pre-post-test quasi-experiment among 1609 primary school children who underwent a 20-lesson learn-to-swim programme. In Study 1, exploratory structural equation modelling revealed excellent goodness-of-fit and scale reliability for a two-factor model comprising distance and skill factors, which supported the construct and convergent validity. SCQ scores were significantly and positively correlated with swimming outcomes (i.e., self-efficacy, intention, swimming frequenc…

The role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in implicit procedural learning.

1996

We studied the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in procedural learning. Normal subjects completed several blocks of a serial reaction time task using only one hand without or with concurrent non-invasive repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation. To disrupt their function transiently, stimulation was applied at low intensity over the supplementary motor area or over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex contralateral or ipsilateral to the hand used for the test. Stimulation to the contralateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex markedly impaired procedural implicit learning, as documented by the lack of significant change in response times during the task. Stimulation over the other …

2018

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique that allows the modulation of cortical excitability as well as neuroplastic reorganization using a weak constant current applied through the skull on the cerebral cortex. TDCS has been found to improve motor performance in general and motor learning in particular. However, these effects have been reported almost exclusively for unimanual motor tasks such as serial reaction time tasks, adaptation tasks, or visuo-motor tracking. Despite the importance of bimanual actions in most activities of daily living, only few studies have investigated the effects of tDCS on bimanual motor skills. The objectives …