This study was undertaken to determine the progressive development in movement and movement patterns (coordinated movements of body parts used involuntarily to achieve an objective) of children 2- to 6-years-old, to identify general characteristics which may be studied for appraisal of growth and development, and to study variations in movement…

This paper presents the results of a comparative analysis between full term typical infants and those born micropremature in the developmental construct of mastery motivation. The sample consisted of 10 micropremature infants with developmental levels within the normal limits and 10 full term 9- to 12-month-olds (adjusted for prematurity) matched…

Developmental data on 612 home reared, Down's Syndrome children, from birth through 16 years of age, were collected over 20 years from an outpatient clinic for mentally retarded children and were statistically analyzed to ascertain normative times of motor, language and intellectual developmental behaviors. (Author/MC)

From a symposium on Cross-Cultural Studies of Mother-Infant Interaction at the Biennial Meeting for Research in Child Development, Minneapolis, Minn., April 2, 1971. (MB)

The shaping of human motor development is demonstrated by the orderly sequence of events which occur throughout the individual's development process. Muscular strength and proficiency in gross motor skills improve with advancing chronological age throughout childhood and adolescence, with sex differences in performance tending to favor males. (JN)

Children have a need and a right to active, movement-oriented play. With the aid of an imaginative parent, such play can assist in the maturation of a child's cognitive ability and serve as a means of developing basic motor skills. (LH)

The McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA) was administered to kindergarten-aged chilren to obtain General Cognitive Indices (CGI). A short form of the MSCA was developed to select six subtests that best predicted the CGI. (Author/BEF)

This article explains the benefits of portfolio usage for students with autism spectrum disorder and details what to include and how to organize the portfolio. Suggested portfolio divisions include artifacts addressing socialization, communication, behavior, academic, functional skills, and fine and gross motor development. Sharing student…

Compared parental perceptions of the use of internal information sources--intuitions, religious beliefs, personal childhood experiences--to use of external sources for information about their toddlers' development. Found that parents perceived the internal sources as being used more frequently and as more useful for information on their child's…

Discusses the renaissance of motor skill acquisition studies that are affording new insights into the processes by which infants and children learn to control their bodies. The article explains how studies are now focusing less on how children perform and more on how the components cooperate to produce stability or engender change, thus making…

After reviewing recent contributions to the field of motor development, suggests a pattern formation or dynamics approach to child development as an alternative to the conventional approaches emphasizing maturation (nativist), specific learning experiences (empiricist), cognitive stages (Piagetian), and strategies of encoding and retrieval…

Examines three alternatives to the classical framework of early cognitive development: modularity-nativism, connectionism, and theory-theory. Arguments are marshaled to support the "theory-theory" view, which emphasizes a combination of innate structure and qualitative reorganization in children's thought based on input from the people and things…

Introduces this special journal issue re-examining the contributions of Myrtle McGraw to developmental psychology in order to clarify misinterpretations of her work and to highlight dimensions that constitute promising lines of inquiry for contemporary researchers. Maintains that McGraw failed to receive credit for her alternative to…

Discusses how McGraw's work broached the notion of a reciprocal relationship between structural maturation and function, thus anticipating the current understanding of the role of experience in the cortical and motor maturation of infants in the first year of postnatal life. Also presents her clear formulation of a flexible critical period concept…

Reexamines McGraw's research and theoretical principles on early neuromotor development, focusing on unaided walking. Notes that contemporary research supports and clarifies her observations providing greater detail about factors involved in the formation of higher-order control, and amplifying the role of experience. Discusses possible mechanisms…