The project used multiple adaptive methods and teaching procedures to reinforce school mobility skills for seven severely handicapped secondary students. Student ambulation became more functional when present skills were reinforced by sequential teaching with daily practice. (CL)

A theoretical frame of rhythm in skilled performance phenomena is presented, arguing that a motor system can produce movements that realize given time scales. Skilled movement is teleological; its timing is an internal schedule of target motor events arranged by the motor system for economy and expressiveness. (Author/CM)

Four principles are drawn from approximately 100 years of research in the area of motor development. The principles are (1) children are not miniature adults, (2) boys and girls (children) are more alike than different, (3) good things are earned, and (4) no body (nobody) is perfect. Five sections of this article introduce some of the major…

Although significant attention has been given to promoting physical activity among children, little attention has been given to the developmental process of how children learn to move or to the changing role that motor skill development plays in children's physical activity levels as they grow. In order to successfully address the obesity…

Bruner's (1973) review of infant skill development is updated and extended by (a) placing it in the context of recent motor learning research; (b) discussing the concept of efference in its most recent conceptualization; and (c) explicating certain implicit themes relevant to a theory of infant motor intelligence. (ED)

This article identifies three types of training--cognitive, psychomotor, and affective--and states that a training which ignores one of these types of training may be deficient. The author cites an unfortunate parachuting program that neglected to include psychomotor skills. (JB)

Five outdoor games beneficial to the development of children's motor skills are described. (LH)

Studied motor competence in 4-year-old children in Norway and tested 91 children using the Movement ABC test. Most striking was that only 1 of the 91 would be classified as "clumsy" within the fifth percentile of U.S. norms, and 7 children were "borderline." Seven of these eight children were boys. (SLD)

In physical education, the Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) pedagogical strategy has attracted significant attention from theoreticians and educators for allowing the development of game education through a tactic-to-skill approach involving the use of modified games. However, some have proposed that as an educational framework, it lacks…

The results of this study indicate that order of practice does have a significant effect on skill acquisition with sequential ordering (practice of a successive nature) being the most efficient method for improving bilateral skill acquisition. (MB)

Longitudinal study of patterns of gross motor development in congenitally blind infants indicated that neuromuscular maturation and postural achievements were similar to those of sighted infants, but that self-initiated mobility and locomotion were delayed. (ST)

Selected factors of practice promoting typewriting skill are: practice is no guarantee of learning; nonrepetitive practice is better than repetitive; mentally rehearsing a skill task is beneficial; little or no improvement takes place without knowledge of results, and; plateaus in motor skill learning may be indicative of practice limit.…

Children's serial motor skill acquisition was studied within a neo-Piagetian framework. High and low M-processors (a designation of a child's ability to produce problem solutions) performed on a curvilinear repositioning task. A primacy-recency effect was evidenced for both groups on the age-related task, while a recency effect occurred for only…

Six recreational activities for elementary aged children involving the use of a ball are described. The activities are designed to develop personal and physical skills and teach children to bounce, dribble, catch, throw, or roll a ball with improved effectiveness. (PHR)