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This study examines the associations of physical activity and gross motor skills in parent–child dyads. Parent–child dyads (N = 61, 84% mothers, children aged 8–11 years) participated in this study. Anthropometrics were self-reported through Qualtrics. Physical activity was assessed using accelerometers. Motor skills were measured through four skills: catch, kick, throw, and jump. These skills were assessed using process (i.e., performance criteria of the Test of Gross Motor Development-3) and product (i.e., catch percentage and jump distance) measures. A complete motor skill score was computed by standardizing both process and product scores and summing them. Correlation coefficients and ordinary least square regressions were computed to examine the associations of physical activity and motor skills. Parents’ and children’s moderate to vigorous physical activity were significantly associated (β = 0.30 ± 0.11; p = .008). Parents’ and children’s motor skills were significantly associated (β = 0.46 ± 0.18; p = .012). Understanding parent determinants can support effective interventions targeting children’s low physical activity levels and improving motor competence. Our results highlight the importance of parents’ physical activity and motor skills, which are significantly associated with those of their children. These parent factors may be a key consideration for effective family-based physical activity interventions.

Research has shown that large visual illusions and an external focus of attention can improve novice’s motor learning. However, the combined effects of these approaches and the underlying mechanisms have yet to be studied. Therefore, the present study examined the effects of a large visual illusion and an external focus on the learning of a dart throwing task in novices and measured the perceptual mechanisms underpinning learning using quiet eye. Forty novice participants were randomly divided into four groups: large visual illusion, external focus of attention, combined large visual illusion and external focus of attention, and control group. The study consisted of a pretest, a practice phase, an immediate retention test, a 24-hr retention test, and a transfer test. Results revealed that all groups increased throwing accuracy and quiet eye duration from pretest to immediate retention. In the immediate retention, 24-hr retention, and transfer test, large visual illusion had greater accuracy and longer quiet eye duration than the control group. In addition, there were no significant differences between the visual illusion and external focus groups for throwing accuracy and quiet eye duration. The findings suggest that combining large visual illusion and external focus can independently improve motor learning but combining these manipulations does not have additive benefits.

This study quantified the spatial exploration of 13 infants born very and extremely preterm (PT) at 4 months corrected age as they learned that moving their feet vertically to cross a virtual threshold activated an infant kick-activated mobile and compared results to 15 infants born full-term (FT) from a previously published study. Spatial exploration was quantified using two general spatial exploration variables (exploration volume and exploration path), two task-specific spatial variables (duration of time in the task-specific region of interest and vertical variance of kicks), and one non-task-specific spatial variable (horizontal variance of kicks). The infants born PT, similar to FT, increased their general spatial exploration and duration in the region of interest and did not change the vertical and horizontal variances of kicks. However, the infants born PT, compared to FT, spent less time in the task-specific region of interest and had a greater non-task-specific horizontal variance throughout the task. This may indicate that infants born PT and FT exhibit similar general spatial exploration, but infants born PT exhibit less task-specific spatial exploration. Future research is necessary to determine the contribution of learning and motor abilities to the differences in task-specific exploration between infants born PT and FT.

Engagement in physical activity plays a central role in the prevention and treatment of childhood overweight/obesity. However, some children may lack the skills and confidence to be physically active. This 3-year follow-up study aimed to form profiles based on cardiorespiratory fitness, actual motor competence, perceived motor competence, physical activity, and weight status, and to examine if these profiles remain stable from late childhood to early adolescence. All these variables were annually assessed in 1,162 Finnish schoolchildren (girls = 583 and boys = 564, M _age = 11.27 ± 0.32 years). Latent profile analysis was used to identify profiles and latent transition analysis to examine the stability of latent statuses. Three profiles were identified: normal weight with high movement, normal weight with low movement, and overweight–obese with low movement. Profile memberships remained relatively stable over time, indicating that children with low actual and perceived motor competence, cardiorespiratory fitness, and physical activity in late childhood also tended to exhibit these characteristics in early adolescence.

Contextual interference is an established phenomenon in learning research; random practice schedules are associated with poorer performance, but superior learning, compared with blocked practice schedules. We present a secondary analysis of N = 84 healthy young adults, replicating the contextual interference effect in a time estimation task. We used the determinant of a correlation matrix to measure the amount of order in participant responses. We calculated this determinant in different phase spaces: trial space, the determinant of the previous five trials (lagged constant error 0–4); and target space, the determinant of the previous five trials of the same target. In trial space, there was no significant difference between groups (p = .98) and no Group × Lag interaction (p = .54), although there was an effect of Lag (p < .01). In target space, there were effects of Group (p = .02), Lag (p < .01), and a Group × Lag interaction (p = .03). Ultimately, randomly scheduled practice was associated with adaptive corrections but positive correlations between errors from trial to trial (e.g., overshoots followed by smaller overshoots). Blocked practice was associated with more adaptive corrections but uncorrelated responses. Our findings suggest that random practice leads to the retrieval and updating of the target from memory, facilitating long-term retention and transfer.

The purpose of this study was to examine state-level early learning standards specific to physical development, including fundamental motor skills and gross motor development for preschool-aged children in the United States. All standards related to motor development and specific to children ages 3–5 years were extracted from publicly available online documents from all 50 states. Upon initial review, 961 standards were extracted from all documents. Through aggregation of similar skills and elimination of duplicates across states, 48 unique skills were identified. Frequencies and proportions of states that included each skill in their standards were calculated. Descriptive results indicate that none of the 48 skills were included as a standard across all 50 states. Only three skills, running, jumping, and throwing a ball overhand were a standard in over 75% of states. Most of the skills were standards in less than 50% of states. Trends from these data show that a wide range of motor skills are included within preschool physical development standards within the United States, with large variability among states. Considering this variability, and currently low levels of motor competence among young children, additional evaluation, and future creation of best practice preschool physical development standards are warranted.

The serial reaction time task (SRTT) is commonly used to study motor learning and memory. The task is traditionally administered in a lab setting with participants responding via button box or keyboard to targets on a screen. By comparing response times of sequential versus random trials and accuracy across sequential trials, different forms of learning can be studied. The present study utilized an online version of the SRTT to study the effects of instructions on learning. Participants were randomly assigned to an explicit learning condition (with instructions to learn the visual sequence and associated tone) or an implicit learning condition (without instructions). Stimuli in both learning conditions were presented in two phases: auditory and visual (training phase), followed by auditory only (testing phase). Results indicated that learning occurred in both training and testing phases, as shown by a significant decrease in response times. There was no significant main effect of learning condition (explicit or implicit) on sequence learning. This suggests that providing explicit instructions does not seem to influence sequence learning in the SRTT learning paradigm. Future online studies utilizing the SRTT should explore varying task instructions in a parametric manner to better understand cognitive processes that underlie sequence learning.