Movement is essential to the physical and cognitive development of young children. Developmentally appropriate dance and movement activities at preschools and elementary schools in Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska are described, along with connections between movement and literacy and numeracy instruction. (SV)

Suggests that studies of the development of children with disorders of motor function afford opportunities, as yet unexploited, to understand the importance of motor function to overall child development. Maintains that Pellegrini and Smith's (1998) review provides a challenge to developmentalists from many disciplines to use their natural model…

Three experiments examined vision's role in infants' grasping of horizontally and vertically oriented rods. Found that infants differentially oriented their hand regardless of lighting and similar to control conditions where they could see rod and hand throughout reach. Findings suggest that infants may use current sight of object's orientation or…

Investigated how play in the natural environment of three Norwegian kindergartens might stimulate 5- to 7-year-olds' motor fitness, focusing on the affordances of the landscape for versatile play. Found that children using the forest as a playscape performed better in motor skills than children on a traditional playground. Play activities related…

This article presents an interview with a mother using a new mobility curriculum with her 4-year-old daughter with cerebral palsy. The physical supports or prompts used in the MOVE curriculum are designed to facilitate the use of mobility skills, not to replace them. An overview of the curriculum is provided. (Contains references.) (CR)

Maintains that advances in the literature on perception-action development suggests that tool use may be a more continuous developmental achievement than previously believed. Suggests new research directions, including efforts to investigate the processes by which children detect and relate affordances between objects, coordinate spatial frames of…

Examines the link between movement experiences--and their consequences during infancy--and cognitive development. Explains how movement stimulates cognitive development, the role of aerobic activity, and the importance of skill development. Offers suggestions for enhancing preschool motor learning experiences, practicing movement fundamentals,…

Movement responses to a stimulus could be either quantitative or qualitative, or could also be the answer to a pre-established problem. This process activates both divergent thinking and critical thinking. Divergent movement ability generates both quantitative and qualitative movement responses to a stimulus. The aim of this study was to examine…

This article presents an example of two boys who have received a list of diagnoses including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), autism, Asperger's syndrome, Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), and clinical depression. Both boys received a variety of interventions ranging from behavior modification plans to counseling and medication,…

The research and literature on how to handle biting has remained consistent over the last 20 years. Most publications and seasoned professionals focus on intervention and tell us to attend to the child who was bitten, reinforce the idea of "using our words" with the biter, and be consistent in the use of separation, redirection, and…

Certainly, the process of decision-making and problem-solving in a shifting playing environment lies at the core of the Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) model. What is not clear is how, at the time of decision-making, players' feelings or affective factors and their subsequent influence on thinking, influence these processes. Affect has a…

Development occurs according to the rhythm that is established by the genetic potential and the influence of environmental factors. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the child's residence area and maternal education on child's motor development. Eight hundred children (384 boys and 416 girls, aged 37-72 months), randomly…

Objective: To study familial and nonfamilial environmental influences on attention problems and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in monozygotic twins discordant and concordant-high and low for these traits. Method: Ninety-five twin pairs from The Netherlands Twin Register were selected. Longitudinal survey data were collected at 1,…

This study compared the skills performance of 60 children, ages 3 to 5, with speech and language delays on the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales (PDMS) with that of national norms on the PDMS. It found that the children with speech and language delays performed the PDMS gross motor skills significantly lower than the norm at each age level. The…

This book presents a comprehensive and detailed theory of early human development based on the principles of dynamic systems theory. It raises fundamental questions about prevailing assumptions in the field and proposes a new theory of the development of cognition and action, unifying recent advances in dynamic systems theory with current research…