The development of the ability to adapt one’s motor performance to the constraints of a movement task was examined in a longitudinal study involving 7 to-9-year-old children who were asked to perform a preparatory handwriting task. The capacity for sensorimotor synchronization was captured by the standard deviation of the relative phase between pacing signals and writing movements and the capacity to adjust wrist-finger coordination while performing repetitive movements was analyzed by autocorrelations of the vertical pen-tip displacements. While the capacity for synchronization improved with age, the autocorrelations were positive at short time lags only and hardly changed with age. A measure of “the long-term memory” of time series (Hurst exponent) confirmed that the findings were systematic rather than noise. Collectively, the results indicate that flexible movement strategies emerge early on in the first 3 years of formal handwriting education. Implications for educational and clinical practice are considered.
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Emerging Behavioral Flexibility in Loop Writing: A longitudinal study in 7- to 9-Year-Old Primary School Children
Ida M. Bosga-Stork, Jurjen Bosga, and Ruud G.J. Meulenbroek
Developing Movement Efficiency Between 7 and 9 Years of Age
Ida Maria Bosga-Stork, Jurjen Bosga, and Ruud G.J. Meulenbroek
This longitudinal study examined the movement efficiency of typically developing children between 7 and 9 years of age by scrutinizing their movement amplitudes and frequencies as they settled into a loop-writing task in which both parameters were prescribed. It was hypothesized that during the first three grades at primary school children would show increasing efficiency in exploiting the inverse relationship between movement amplitude and frequency when adjusting their movement errors. Whereas a clear developmental trend showed increasing efficiency with respect to the way in which the primary school children met the amplitude constraints, a more variable pattern was found for the age-dependent adjustments to the frequency requirements. At the level of parameter-error corrections from one cycle to the next, a marginal developmental trend was observed. Results are discussed in terms of contrasting effects between educational targets and movement-efficiency principles.
The Effects of Number and Separation of Support Lines on the Size, Velocity, and Smoothness of Handwriting
Ivonne H.F. Duiser, Annick Ledebt, John van der Kamp, and Geert J.P. Savelsbergh
Despite ubiquitous digitalization, handwriting is still one of the crucial motor skills that children acquire in primary school. It is therefore a matter of concern that a considerable number of children show unsatisfactory or dysgraphic handwriting. 1 For example, about one out of three Dutch
Should Ballet Dancers Vary Postures and Underfoot Surfaces When Practicing Postural Balance?
Nili Steinberg, Gordon Waddington, Roger Adams, Janet Karin, and Oren Tirosh
.J. , & Steele , J.R. ( 2011 ). Gender and age affect balance performance in primary school-aged children . Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 14 ( 3 ), 243 – 248 . PubMed doi:10.1016/j.jsams.2010.11.002 10.1016/j.jsams.2010.11.002 Miller , C.D. , Paulos , L.E. , Parker , R.D. , & Fishell
New Insight on Motor Behavior: The Link Between the Hopping Task and the Tracing Performance as Hint of Gross and Fine Motor Functions
Danilo Bondi, Sergio Di Sano, Vittore Verratti, Giampiero Neri, Tiziana Aureli, and Tiziana Pietrangelo
development, motor planning, sustained attention, the fine motor control, and awareness of the fingers ( Feder & Majnemer, 2007 ). The skills acquired in preschool and then consolidated during the first years of primary school ensure that a child proactively controls the movement during manual writing
Development of Laterality and Bimanual Interference of Fine Motor Movements in Childhood and Adolescence
Brenda Carolina Nájera Chávez, Stefan Mark Rueckriegel, Roland Burghardt, and Pablo Hernáiz Driever
after primary school depending on their academic performance. Children from the ages 6 to 12 were assessed in a primary school with bilingual classes (German and Spanish). Adolescents between the ages of 13 and 19 years were selected from a “gymnasium” (secondary school with higher education level) and
The Influence of a Warm-Up on Vigilance in University Students
Francisco Tomás González-Fernández, Alfonso Castillo-Rodriguez, Sixto González-Víllora, and David Hortigüela-Alcalá
-2019-V76-I4-8724 Gallotta , M.C. , Emerenziani , G.P. , Franciosi , E. , Meucci , M. , Guidetti , L. , & Baldari , C. ( 2015 ). Acute physical activity and delayed attention in primary school students . Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 25 ( 3 ), e331 – e338
Effect of Motor Development Levels on Kinematic Synergies During Two-Hand Catching in Children
Marzie Balali, Shahab Parvinpour, and Mohsen Shafizadeh
mature level of these skills, as a proficiency constraint, is likely to limit participation in activities for health or sports ( Seefeldt, 1980 ). For example, it was reported that the development in object control skills of primary school children was strongly associated with physical activity and
Effects of Contextual Interference on Learning of Falling Techniques
Saša Krstulović, Andrea De Giorgio, Óscar DelCastillo Andrés, Emerson Franchini, and Goran Kuvačić
cluster randomized controlled trial in 33 primary schools, where the experimental group received the educational program to improve falling skills during their physical education classes, whereas the control group received their regular physical education curriculum. The authors found no significant
