Search Results

Individuals with visual impairments (VI) trend toward lower motor competence when compared with peers without VI. Various forms of perception often affects motor competence. Thus, it is important to explore factors that influence forms of perception and their differential effects on motor competence for those with VI. Therefore, the purposes of this study were to explore and describe the differential effects of age, gender, and degree of vision on self-perceptions, parents’ perceptions, metaperceptions, and locomotor skills, and to examine potential associations among all variables with actual locomotor competence for adolescents with VI. Adolescents with VI completed two questionnaires and the Test of Gross Motor Development-Third Edition. Parents completed a parent perception questionnaire. Mann–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis H analyses showed no differential effects for gender or age on any dependent measures. Degree of vision affected locomotor skills, but not any other factor. Spearman rho correlations showed significant associations among locomotor and self-perceptions, degree of vision and locomotor, and metaperceptions with parents’ perceptions. Adolescents reported relatively high self-perceptions and metaperceptions; however, their actual locomotor competence and parents’ perceptions were relatively low. Findings may help situate future intervention strategies targeting parents supporting their children’s locomotor skills through self-perceptions.

This study (a) examined the associations among different performance metrics derived from different strategies (i.e., maximum and average scores) and trials from product-oriented measures of motor skills, and (b) explored how different performance metrics from product-oriented assessments of motor skills change in young children with typical development. Children (N = 279; 156 girls; M _age = 4.44 years) completed a battery of product-oriented assessments for throwing (in meters per second, five trials); kicking (in meters per second, five trials); jumping (in centimeters, five trials); running (in meters per second, two trials); and hopping (in meters per second, four trials—two preferred foot, two nonpreferred foot). A total of 36 performance metrics were derived—throw (n = 7), kick (n = 7), jump (n = 7), run (n = 4), and hop (n = 11). Intraclass correlations examined reliability among performance metrics for each skill; linear mixed models examined whether variations changed across early childhood. There was excellent reliability among all performance metrics for each skill (all ICC > .90). Linear mixed models revealed that children’s motor performance improved for two metrics of the throw, five variations of the jump, and three metrics of the hop (all p < .05). Researchers should be aware that some performance metrics from product-oriented assessments (e.g., maximum and average of three or five trials) are highly related and change, whereas others do not.