The orbitofrontal cortex (OBFc) has been suggested to code the motivational value of environmental stimuli and to use this information for the flexible guidance of goal-directed behavior. To examine whether information regarding reward prediction is quantitatively represented in the rat OBFc, neural activity was recorded during an olfactory…

This paper offers teachers basic information about sensory integration and suggests strategies for managing classrooms which include children with sensory integrative dysfunction. The first section looks at what sensory integration is, noting especially the roles of the three "near senses": the vestibular system, the proprioceptive system, and the…

Elementary school physical education in the 1950s espoused the aims of complete education through programs which emphasized mastery of skills in games, sports, dance, and similar activities. Since the middle of the 1960s, movement education has gained in popularity as both a methodology and as a program focusing on learning through efficient…

Simple observation of dance movement, while very useful, can lead to misconceptions, about the physical realities of dance movement, that make learning difficult. This gap between reality and understanding can be reduced by the application of biomechanical techniques such as cinematography, electromyography, and force-plate analysis. Biomechanical…

The 33 lesson plans are intended to enhance the sensorimotor intelligence period of severely/profoundly handicapped children. It is stated that the conceptual framework of the "Stimulating Our Senses" (SOS) program is based on the description of sensorimotor intelligence by J. Piaget and attempts to strengthen growth and development in…

Several studies have shown an improvement in the performance of motor skills following imagined performance of the skill, or "mental practice." One unresolved issue has centered on whether the effect being observed is in fact a practice effect. As one alternative, the effect may be a simple instance of planning when to use a skill, or…

The study of human movement is presented from an integrated perspective influenced by the fields of motor learning, experimental psychology, neuropsychology, kinesiology, biomechanics, and human factors engineering. The level of presentation is directed toward upperclass undergraduate and graduate students in physical education and others pursuing…

It was discovered a few years ago that a child's capacity for academic learning was partially dependent on visual and audio perception. It was also found that the development of perception in these sensory modalities was sometimes deficient. Educators immediately began to devise programs for perceptual-motor training, but ignored the role of the…

In this speech, the author expresses concern for the child who does not seem able to perform. The author states that there is an orderly acquisition of sensations, skills, and/or patterns that we move through in the process of learning, and that the acquisition of more advanced skills is predicted on the assumption that earlier sensations, skills,…

A sample of 247 Educationally Handicapped (EH) children at ages 6-10 was investigated to determine the role of static balance impairment in learning disabilities and the possibility of improving reading through balance training. Significant correlations between balance ability and reading level were found in only about 40% of the sample,…

The purpose of the effort was to determine the benefits to be derived from the adaptive training technique of automatically adjusting task difficulty as a function of a student skill during early learning of a complex perceptual motor task. A digital computer provided the task dynamics, scoring, and adaptive control of a second-order, two-axis,…

In the series of experiments supported by this grant, some fundamental characteristics of the concept of attention were explored. The first experiments were based upon the assumption that attention is limited and consequently that adult subjects may only be able to perceive a fairly restricted portion of the stimuli available to them at any moment…

The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness of the Frostig Developmental Program of Visual Perception in effecting gains in reading readiness scores and perceptual motor ability with kindergarten students and reading achievement scores and perceptual motor ability with grade one students. High, middle and low groups in both…

The basic assumption underlying the assessment of motor learning through mathematical analysis is that motor learning behaves exponentially when described as a function of practice time. It is assumed that motor learning will continuously taper off (minimizing errors) with increased practice and eventually approach as asympote. Although many…