Development Of Motor Planning Research Articles

Water Gymnastics as a Therapeutic Method to Improve Motor Planning in Children with Intellectual Disability

Study purpose. This paper is devoted to an experimental study aimed to identify the effects of water gymnastics as a therapeutic method for improving motor planning in children with intellectual disability studying in general and special education institutions. Materials and methods. Twenty-three children (13 boys and 10 girls) aged from 6 to 11 years (x̅ = 8.61) participated in the study. Three neuropsychological tests were used to study motor function: Sequential alternation of fist-palm-side, Graphic test “Fence”, and Fist-palm. Data were collected before and after participation in an 11-month therapy course conducted in a water environment. Descriptive analysis and One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were applied to process the empirical material. Cohen's η was used to interpret the effect size attributed to the therapeutic intervention. Results. Programming, regulation, and control, as the main components of motor planning, showed improvement after the children participated in the organized sessions, as evidenced by the large or larger than typical effect size η=[0.37:0.45+] recorded and the nonsignificant differences between groups differentiated by level of intellectual disability, age, and gender at the control measurement stage (p > 0.05). Conclusions. The results lead to the generalization that at the final stage of the study, all three factors (level of intellectual disability, age and gender) had no significant influence on the development of motor planning, confirming the effects of water gymnastics as a technology for its improvement.

Development of motor planning in children: Disentangling elements of the planning process

Second-order motor planning of grasping movements is usually measured using tasks that focus on the relative (dis)comfort of end posture of the arm and hand regardless of the objective outcome of performance. This may underestimate the ability for forward planning in young children. In the current study, we aimed to examine the developmental mechanisms of motor planning in children using a task that necessitates second-order motor planning for its successful completion. We tested 311 children (aged 5–12 years) who were instructed to grasp and rotate a hexagonal knob over 60°, 120°, 180°, or 240°. The 180° and 240° rotation conditions necessitated adjustment of the preferred start grip for successful task completion. We examined successful or unsuccessful task completion, reaction time (RT), and movement time (MT) as a function of task demands (i.e., rotation angle) and age. Results showed that most children of all ages were able to successfully complete the task in the 180° rotation condition. In the most demanding 240° rotation condition, many children had difficulty in completing the task, but successful task completion increased with age. Time course analysis showed increased RT and MT with increasing task demands. Furthermore, whereas RT decreased with age for each rotation angle, MT remained stable with the exception of an increase in MT for the most demanding rotation condition. Together, these results exemplify that children aged 5–12 years are indeed able to engage in forward planning. With development, second-order motor planning proficiency increases, especially for more demanding movements, and the process becomes more efficient.

Motor planning in children with cerebral palsy: A longitudinal perspective

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Motor planning is important for daily functioning. Deficits in motor planning can result in slow, inefficient, and clumsy motor behavior and are linked to disruptions in performance of activities of daily living in children with cerebral palsy (CP). However, the evidence in CP is primarily based on cross-sectional data. Method: Data are presented on the development of motor planning in children with CP using a longitudinal design with three measurement occasions, each separated by 1 year. Twenty-two children with CP (9 boys, 13 girls; age in years;months, M = 7;1, SD = 1;2) and 22 age-matched controls (10 boys, 12 girls, M = 7;1, SD = 1;3) participated. Children performed a bar transport task in which some conditions (“critical angles”) required participants to sacrifice initial posture comfort in order to achieve end-state comfort. Performance on critical trials was analyzed using linear growth curve modeling. Results: In general, children with CP showed poor end-state planning for critical angles. Importantly, unlike in controls, motor planning ability did not improve across the three measurement occasions in children with CP. Conclusion: These longitudinal results show that motor planning issues in CP do not resolve with development over childhood. Strategies to enhance motor planning are suggested for intervention.

Learning to grasp efficiently: The development of motor planning and the role of observational learning

We examined whether 18-, 24-, and 42-month-old children, like adults, prospectively adjust their hand movements to insure a comfortable hand posture at the endpoint, and whether children can learn to grasp efficiently by observation. The task required grasping a bar and fitting it into a hollow cylinder in order to make it light up. Measures of quantitative (grip height), as well as qualitative (grip type) prospective grip adaptation were analyzed. Grip height adaptation was found reliably by 24 months, grip type adaptation by 3 years. The ability to learn efficient grasping by observation seems however very restricted.