Object Control Skills Training for Children With Intellectual Disability: An Implementation Case Study

Catherine M Capio,Kathlynne F Eguia

doi:10.1177/21582440211030603

Abstract

Children with intellectual disability (ID) tend to have difficulty with mastering fundamental movement skills, associated with cognitive deficits that impair skill acquisition. In this case study, motor learning evidence was transformed into an object control skills training program for children with ID in a school context. An implementation framework was used for program design, pilot, and evaluation. Research evidence on error-reduced motor learning was combined with practitioners’ insights to inform the program design. Children with ID in the participant school were allocated to a training or control group for the pilot; object control skills proficiency was the measured outcome. The lead trainer was interviewed and their notes were reviewed for process evaluation. Significant improvements in participants’ object control skills proficiency were found following training. The process evaluation confirmed fidelity and identified implementation factors. The systematically designed application was found beneficial for children with ID. Implementation criteria were identified for future iterations of an error-reduced approach to training movement skills of children with ID.

Highlights

The ability to move proficiently enables a child to play and interact with others in a range of environments, thereby developing later social adaptation skills and behaviors (Bart et al, 2007; Ommundsen et al, 2010)
According to skill acquisition theories, movement skills are initially learnt through processes that are dependent on verbal knowledge, and skills become automated through extensive practice (Magill & Anderson, 2017)
Such learning mechanism is reliant on cognitive resources, which could explain the difficulty that children with intellectual disability (ID) experience in mastering fundamental movement skills

Summary

Introduction

The ability to move proficiently enables a child to play and interact with others in a range of environments, thereby developing later social adaptation skills and behaviors (Bart et al, 2007; Ommundsen et al, 2010). It has been evident that the error-reduced approach could be effective in improving movement skills of young children, especially those with weak motor abilities (Capio et al, 2017; Maxwell et al, 2017) This approach was initially tested in training overhand throwing among 7- to 9-year-old typically developing children (Capio, Poolton, Sit, Holmstrom et al, 2013). Experiences of success during early practice led to improved overhand throwing performance and allowed the children to engage in a secondary task (i.e., counting backward) without it disrupting the primary throwing task This suggested that with the errorreduced approach, motor skills improved without reliance on cognitive resources which remained available for engagement in non-motor tasks. Based on the growing evidence base, we deemed that the step to take is toward translating research into a program that would mitigate the limitations imposed by cognitive deficits on fundamental movement skill proficiency of children with ID

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion