Dance is a universal human behavior and a crucial component of human musicality. When and how does the motivation and tendency to move to music develop? How does this behavior change as a process of maturation and learning? We characterize infants' earliest dance behavior, leveraging parents' extensive at-home observations of their children.…

Learning to walk leads to an increase in language abilities; however, the underlying mechanisms accounting for this relation remain unclear. Investigating the quality of early gait control may offer some insights. The purpose of this study was to: (1) quantify how 13-month-olds (n = 39; 39% male) and 24-month-olds (n = 39; 59% male) adapt gait…

Reward has been shown to change behavior as a result of incentive learning (by motivating the individual to increase their effort) and instrumental learning (by increasing the frequency of a particular behavior). However, Palminteri et al. (2011) demonstrated that reward can also improve the incidental learning of a motor skill even when…

The field of early autism research is in dire need of outcome measures that adequately reflect subtle changes in core autistic behaviors. This article compares the ability of a newly developed measure, the Brief Observation of Social Communication Change (BOSCC), and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) to detect changes in core…

This study demonstrated the effectiveness of a therapeutic motor development program based on a games analysis model for reducing feminine game choices in emotionally disturbed boys. (MM)

This study reports effects of a neurobehavioral intervention approach on motor skills of four children (ages 1 to 3) with cerebral palsy. Children demonstrated generalization of the movement component by using it to perform both a treated exemplar skill and an untreated exemplar skill, indicating that motor skills can be treated concurrently.…

Walking behavior was established in a 20-month-old Down's Syndrome girl by a parent trained in behavior analysis. During a series of 7-minute sessions, the child was given edible reinforcement for taking unsupported steps between two chairs which were gradually moved from 18 to 70 inches apart. In three final generalization sessions, the chairs…

This study examined behavioral development during the first year of life of 41 infants diagnosed with cerebral palsy, hypotonia, or hypertonia. The KID Scale, an empirically normed, caregiver-report inventory which covers behavior in five domains (cognitive, motor, language, self help, and social) was administered at about 5, 9, and 12 months…

Three non-academic teaching strategies were evaluated for their impact on the academic, behavioral, and self concept learning of 40 trainable mentally retarded and 44 learning handicapped children (8-12 years old). The children in each category were divided into four groups: a control group, a visualization training group, a relaxation training…

Described is a program designed to present social awareness skills to moderately, severely, and profoundly mentally handicapped persons (beginning with ages l3-l5 years) through group team play as well as through experiences in movement and physical activity. Of the several applicable teaching methods presented, behavior modification is discussed…

The bibliography contains 75 annotations of empirical studies (1958-1974) on the psychomotor training and development of young handicapped children (1-19 years old). Studies are organized in two ways: alphabetically by author, and diagrammatically according to research thrust. The research thrusts (followed by the number of studies in each area)…