Biomechanical analysis of human movement seeks to relate observable motions or configurations of the body to the forces that act to produce those motions or maintain those configurations. These are identified as force-motion relationships. In assessing force-motion relationships in children's movement, the process type assessment, Ohio State…

A motor performance typology of boys and girls (ages 6-10 years) was developed, based on four factors extracted by factor analysis from data on 47 physical growth and motor performance variables. Nineteen variables which best described the four factor-defined components were used in formulating the person-clusters (typologies) following Tryon's…

The goals of the HOPE (Health and Optimum Physical Education) project are described in this document as follows: to design and field test a model program in elementary physical education that would measurably improve children in fitness, motor skills, and knowledge and understanding of physical education and would contribute to improvement in…

The assessment battery is intended to establish the mentally retarded child's highest level of performance in each activity as a prerequisite to and planning aid for the development of an occupational therapy-based home training program designed to stimulate the child to operate at maximum ability levels. The battery, with a graduated rating…

Explains how teachers can initiate mapping experiences with young children by providing motor experiences inside and outside the classroom. Experiences should be followed by work with three-dimensional models, then with two-dimensional paper, and finally with lines. (Author)

Tested infants in their second year with a box task to determine whether they would show a hand preference in solutions involving complete differentiation of roles for the two hands. (HOD)

The developing directional preferences in writing and drawing that were observed in subjects between four years of age and adulthood suggest that two semiindependent motor systems are involved in writing: one for rapid and nonfigurative tasks, the other--which occurs later--for precision and symbolic functions. (Author/GT)

Videotaped 10 West African Nso and 10 German mother-infant interactional sequences and conducted discussion groups about videotaped mother-infant interactions to investigate conceptions of motor stimulation and developmental goals. Results highlighted different perceptions of good parenting. Nso women focused significantly more on motor handling,…

A mail survey was used to investigate 5-year trends in Japanese mothers' reports of their 3-year-olds' cognitive, psychomotor, and social developmental attainment. Findings indicated significant decreases in all domains, not attributable to changes in family structure, although scores were higher among children in nuclear families than in extended…

Studied the early development of exploratory behavior in 99 infants of 2-5 months. Results show that there are significant changes in spontaneous multimodal exploration of a novel object between 2 and 5 months. (RJC)

Measures of both temporal and spectral parameters were computed to determine the extent of perseveratory coarticulation in the vowel-consonant syllables produced by 7- and 10-year-old children (n=9). Profoundly hearing-impaired speakers exhibited measurable but smaller effects of perseveratory coarticulation relative to the normally hearing…

This article identifies possible causes of handwriting difficulties and suggests activities to facilitate the development of hand muscles and handwriting skills. It discusses handwriting readiness, wrist stability, hand development activities, pencil grasp, hand dominance, eye-hand coordination, basic strokes, general readiness skills, writing…

Examined longitudinally the effects of infants' age, body dimensions, and experience on the development of crawling. Although most infants displayed multiple crawling postures en route to walking, development did not adhere to a strict progression of obligatory, discrete stages. Duration of experience with earlier forms of crawling predicted the…

A review of current research on outcomes of children born premature and low birth weight provides a detailed summary of the long-term performance in the areas of cognition, motor, behavior, and language performance. Three tables provide comparative data for major studies concerned with developmental outcomes of pre-term children for cognition,…

This article describes the author's experience when visiting her grandson's kindergarten classroom. The author is a parent, and at one time was a kindergarten teacher, program director, supervisor of student teachers, and consultant, so she's been involved for well over 40 years with a vast number of children as they have had their very special…