Motor Development Research Research Articles

Development and validation of a test instrument for the assessment of perceived basic motor competencies in first and second graders: the SEMOK-1-2 instrument.

Both actual motor competencies (AMC) and perceived motor competencies (PMC) play an important role in motor development research and children's physical and psychological development. PMC refer to children's perceptions of their motor competencies. To assess the PMC of first and second grade children (aged 6-9 years), the SEMOK-1-2 instrument was developed. The instrument is aligned to the validated MOBAK-1-2 instrument which assesses AMC in the competence areas "object movement" and "self-movement" Accounting for possible reading difficulties in younger children, the motor tasks and answer options were illustrated and explained verbally. The purpose of this study was to test and validate the SEMOK-1-2 instrument and investigate the associations between the constructs AMC, PMC and physical activity (PA), whereby PA was measured by the participation in team and individual sports. Data from N = 404 pupils in the German-speaking part of Switzerland from first and second grades (M = 7.8 years, SD = 0.69, 49% boys) were analyzed. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the factorial validity of the SEMOK-1-2 instrument. Structural equation models were used to investigate the association between the constructs. The analyses confirmed a two-factor structure with the factors PMC "object movement" and PMC "self-movement", corresponding to the factors existing in the MOBAK-1-2 instrument. Latent correlations between AMC factors and the corresponding PMC factors were r = 0.79 for "object movement" and r = 0.76 for "self-movement". Associations with external criteria and covariates, such as sex, were associated with both AMC and PMC. Analyses also revealed that children who participated more often in individual and team sports showed higher levels in both AMC and PMC. The confirmation of the two-factorial structure of the SEMOK-1-2 instrument and the associations between AMC and PMC as well as external criteria indicate construct and criterion validity. The SEMOK-1-2 instrument can be economically utilized for assessing PMC and is also suitable for the monitoring of PMC in the context of Physical Education.

Motor Competence as Key to Support Healthy Development of 3- to 5-Year-Old Children: An Expert Statement on Behalf of the International Motor Development Research Consortium

The first years of life are an optimal time for developing motor competence. However, the evidence regarding motor competence in early childhood is fragmented and needs to be clearly synthesized and presented. To establish effective evidence-based decision making in research, practice, and policy for the early years, this expert statement, on behalf of the International Motor Development Research Consortium, draws together what is currently known about 3- to 5-year-old children on (a) how skilled are children around the world, (b) the link between motor competence and healthy developmental outcomes, and (c) the capacity to improve children’s motor competence through intervention. This expert statement presents a summary of recent evidence for each of these specific points, followed by recommendations for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

International Society of Research and Advocacy for Developmental Coordination Disorder (ISRA-DCD)—15th Biannual Conference and International Motor Development Research Consortium (I-MDRC)—6th Assembly

International Society of Research and Advocacy for Developmental Coordination Disorder (ISRA-DCD)—15th Biannual Conference and International Motor Development Research Consortium (I-MDRC)—6th Assembly

In Tribute: Reflections on the Impact of Professor Michael Turvey on Motor Development

In our tribute to Professor Michael Turvey, we have two parallel goals: 1) to highlight the scientific scope of Turvey’s impact on motor development; and, 2) to expose readers to papers that they may not have read but that might cast new light on age-old questions they confront in their current research on motor development. The paper is divided into two equal time periods. In Part 1, from 1975 to 1999, we trace the emergence and growth of Dynamic Systems/Ecological Realism (perception-action) paradigms. We explain how the existing paradigms in motor development research, the descriptive and information processing paradigms were, in part, replaced by new paradigms whose existence owes much to Michael Turvey and his colleagues. We suggest that this time period was one where Turvey had the most conceptual influence on the field. In Part 2, from 2000 to 2024, we describe how factors, including the emergence of two new paradigms in motor development research may have reduced Turvey’s direct influence. But we also note that there is still much research undertaken that builds off the bases of Dynamic Systems and Perception-Action Coupling approaches including research by Turvey and his students/colleagues. We end with the suggestion that the present generation of motor development researchers may have something to gain by re-/reading research from these perspectives regardless of whether it is directly from Professor Turvey’s pen or from those whom he influenced (or influenced him).

Social Media as a Tool for Understanding the Role of Motor Differences in Neurodivergent Identity and Lived Experience.

Social media offers an exciting opportunity for the field of motor development and behavior research. With platforms such as Twitter offering access to historical data from users' public bios and posts, there is untapped potential to examine community perspectives on the role of motor differences in identity and lived experience. Analysis of online discourse offers advantages over traditional qualitative methods like structured interviews or focus groups, including a less-contrived setting, global geographic and cultural representation, and ease of sampling. The aim of this special section is to present a pipeline for harvesting and analysis of Twitter data related to users' identities and discourse characteristics, specifically situated in the context of motor development and behavior. This pipeline is demonstrated in two independent studies, one on autistic users and one on developmental coordination disorder (DCD)/dyspraxic users. These studies demonstrate the utility of Twitter data for research on neurodivergent and disabled people's perspectives on their motor differences, and whether they are expressed as part of their identity. Implications of results are discussed for each study, as well as in the larger context of future research using a variety of approaches to analysis of social media data, including those from predominantly image- and video-based platforms.

Global hotspots and trends in research on preschool children's motor development from 2012 to 2022: a bibliometric analysis.

Motor development plays an important role in human development throughout the lifespans, from conception to death, and has received increasing scholarly attention in recent years. However, valuable comprehensive reviews and literature analysis on this topic are still lacking. Here, this bibliometric study aimed to identify global motor development research hotspots and trends on preschool children's motor development from 2012 to 2022. CiteSpace 6.1.R4 was used to visualize and analyze general bibliometric characteristics, research hotspots, and trends through a review of 2,583 articles on the motor development of preschool children, which were published from 2012 to 2022 and included in the Web of Science Core Collection. Research on motor development in preschool children has been carried out into a phase of rapid development. The top five frequently occurring keywords were physical activity (n = 489), performance (n = 319), intervention (n = 222), health (n = 196), and executive function (n = 165); The top five keywords in terms of centrality are academic achievement (0.22), low birth weight (0.16), association (0.14), brain (0.13), and cerebral palsy (0.13). Thirteen keyword clusters were produced from the log-likelihood ratio (Q = 0.74, S = 0.88), and five research topics has been received focused attention in recent years. The keywords with the strongest citation bursts in the last 5 years are developing country (S = 5.92), school-aged children (S = 5.86), middle-income country (S = 3.46), efficacy (S = 5.41), readiness (S = 3.21), motor proficiency (S = 3.6), and screen time (S = 3.3), indicating newly emerging research trends. The results indicated that interventions involving fundamental movement skills, cognitive function, 24-h movement behaviors, neurodevelopmental disorders, and health-related fitness were hot topics in the field of motor development over the last decade. Emerging research trends generally center on school readiness, socioeconomic status, motor proficiency, and screen time.

Trust the “Process”? When Fundamental Motor Skill Scores are Reliably Unreliable

ABSTRACT The typical process for assessing inter-rater reliability is facilitated by training raters within a research team. Lacking is an understanding if inter-rater reliability scores between research teams demonstrate adequate reliability. This study examined inter-rater reliability between 16 researchers who assessed fundamental motor skills using the Test of Gross Motor Development-3rd edition. Total score agreement (ICC = 0.363) and locomotor subscale agreement (ICC = 0.383) were “very poor,” while ball skills subscale agreement (ICC = 0.478) was “poor.” Consistencies of total (ICC = 0.757), locomotor (ICC = 0.730), and ball skills (ICC = 0.746) scores were “fair.” Component percentage agreement ranged from 40.5% to 96.2%. These data suggest that there are significant differences in how different research groups evaluate fundamental motor skills based on the subjective nature of scoring. Consistency and agreement among users need to be addressed in motor development research to allow for direct comparisons across studies that use process-oriented measures.

A Commentary on Whitall and Colleagues’ 2020 Article “Motor Development Research: II. The First Two Decades of the 21st Century Shaping Our Future”

This commentary reflects on the discussions of Whitall et al.’s paper “Motor Development Research: II. The First Two Decades of the 21st Century Shaping Our Future.” Comments focus on (a) the emergence and importance of the Developmental Systems approach to motor development, (b) the perceived ambiguity between Dynamic and Developmental Systems approaches, and (c) a case for the evolution of Developmental Motor Neuroscience from the field of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.

Motor Competence Among Children in the United Kingdom and Ireland: An Expert Statement on Behalf of the International Motor Development Research Consortium

The United Kingdom and Ireland have a well-established research base in motor competence (MC) research, ranging from reporting and monitoring levels of MC, developing assessment tools for MC, providing innovative curriculum and intervention design to support learning and development, as well as providing advocacy for particular groups, such as those with motor impairments. This expert statement, on behalf of the International Motor Development Research Consortium, draws together what is currently known about levels of MC in the United Kingdom and Ireland as well as current approaches to intervention in both countries. Subsequently presented are recommendations for researchers and practitioners to advance the field of MC for the benefit of children and youth in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and worldwide.

Advancing Motor Learning and Development Research: A New Era for Our Journal

Advancing Motor Learning and Development Research: A New Era for Our Journal

Motor Development Research: Designs, Analyses, and Future Directions

Throughout this special issue, different authors have discussed diverse aspects of past, present, and future motor development research. In such research, understanding how people move involves much more than studying motor behavior in individuals of different ages. Rather, empirical designs should embed some element of past, present, and future motor behavior into research questions, designs, methodologies, and interpretations. In this article, we provide an overview on the process of asking movement-related developmental questions and designing appropriate research studies that will answer them to provide a foundation for both new and returning investigators interested in studying human motor development. We compare descriptive and experimental approaches as well as longitudinal, cross-sectional, and alternative research designs, followed by a discussion of common statistical analyses suited for these designs. Through this discussion, we offer suggestions for the most appropriate ways in which to study developmental change. We finish with our thoughts on future directions for investigational methods within motor development research.

Assessment of Motor Development in Childhood: Contemporary Issues, Considerations, and Future Directions

Assessment of the motor domain is a critical aspect of understanding motor development. Measurement of motor development is the baseline to understand potential delays and to promote the tools for change and improvement of this domain. This paper aims to reflect on the construct of motor development and the process of assessing motor performance. We review the use of assessments in motor development research and discuss issues of validity, reliability, sensitivity, and specificity. We appraise selected assessments, describe how the use of assessments changed over the periods of study in motor development, and examine the contemporary status of assessments and its applications. Finally, and most importantly, we provide suggestions and recommendations for future directions in the field, as well as pose important questions for researchers and practitioners to consider when selecting, using, and interpreting assessment results. In light of the contemporary view of motor development and the increasing focus on health applications, we recommend the use of screening tools, short forms, and technology, as well as encouraging the use of and more research on motor development assessments in childhood.

Motor Development Research: II. The First Two Decades of the 21st Century Shaping Our Future

In Part I of this series I, we looked back at the 20thcentury and re-examined the history of Motor Development research described in Clark & Whitall’s 1989 paper “What is Motor Development? The Lessons of History”. We now move to the 21stcentury, where the trajectories of developmental research have evolved in focus, branched in scope, and diverged into three new areas. These have progressed to be independent research areas, co-existing in time. We posit that the research focus on Dynamical Systems at the end of the 20thcentury has evolved into a Developmental Systems approach in the 21stcentury. Additionally, the focus on brain imaging and the neural basis of movement have resulted in a new approach, which we entitled Developmental Motor Neuroscience. Finally, as the world-wide obesity epidemic identified in the 1990s threatened to become a public health crisis, researchers in the field responded by examining the role of motor development in physical activity and health-related outcomes; we refer to this research area as the Developmental Health approach. The glue that holds these research areas together is their focus on movement behavior as it changes across the lifespan.

Motor functioning in developmental psychopathology: A review of autism as an example context

Background. Motor development research has seen substantial recent growth. However, much remains to be understood about the nature and extent of motor impairments in neurodevelopmental disorders, including their potential as early markers and/or causal determinants of downstream functioning in other domains. Aims and Methods. In this narrative review, drawing primarily on the autism literature by way of example, we review current accounts of the nature and consequences of motor functioning. We consider conventional approaches to measurement and study design, and current limited approaches to tackling heterogeneity. Conclusions and Implications. We argue that ongoing adherence to traditional diagnostic outcome classification stands in the face of mounting evidence that characteristics of neurodevelopmental disorders lie on a continuum with variability in the general population, and that three broad research avenues stand to offer a better understanding of motor functioning: The use of technology and advanced statistical methods for a more nuanced understanding of motor abilities; exploiting the prospective longitudinal tracking of at-risk infants to understand developmental consequences of early motor difference; and employing randomized controlled trials to test the utility of motor therapies whilst also testing causal hypotheses about the role of motor functioning.

Motor Development Research: I. The Lessons of History Revisited (the 18th to the 20th Century)

In 1989, Clark and Whitall asked the question, “What is motor development?” They were referring to the study of motor development as an academic research enterprise and answered their question primarily by describing four relatively distinct time periods characterized by changes in focus, theories or concepts, and methodology. Their last period was named the process-oriented period (1970–1989). In hindsight, it seems clear that their last period could be divided into two separate historical time periods: the information-processing period (1970–1982) and the dynamical systems period (1982–2000). In the present paper, we briefly revisit the first three periods defined by Clark and Whitall, and expand and elaborate on the two periods from 1970 to the turn of the century. Each period is delineated by key papers and the major changes in focus, theories or concepts, and methodology. Major findings about motor development are also described from some papers as a means of showing the progression of knowledge.

Plukdymo poveikis kūdikių motorinei raidai ir fizinei sveikatai

Tyrimo pagrindimas. Kūdikių motorikos sutrikimai ir sulėtėjęs judesių tobulinimo etapas yra opios šiuolaikinės visuomenės problemos. Viena iš pagrindinių to priežasčių – vaiko fizinė sveikata, nes kūdikystėje organizmas yra jautresnis lengvai plintančioms ligoms. Remiantis per pastarąjį šimtmetį sukaupta moksline literatūra, efektyviausia reabilitacijos priemonė, skirta imuninės sistemos stiprinimui ir sutrikusiai motorinei raidai koreguoti, yra individuali fizinė Tikslas – įvertinti plukdymo poveikį kūdikių motorinei raidai ir fizinei Metodai. Buvo tiriami 34 kūdikiai (6–18 mėn. amžiaus), neturintys įgimtų sveikatos sutrikimų ar įgytų traumų. Pirmą tiriamųjų grupę sudarė 17 kūdikių, lankiusių plukdymo užsiėmimus daugiau nei 3 mėnesius, antrą – 17 kūdikių, nelankiusių baseino. Tyrimo metu buvo vertinama kūdikių motorika pagal Peabody motorinės raidos skalę ir analizuojama fizinės sveikatos būklė naudojantis anketinės apklausos Rezultatai. Lyginant abiejų grupių surinktų procentilių, amžiaus ekvivalento, amžiaus ekvivalento ir chronologinio amžiaus vidurkių skirtumus, pasiskirstymą pagal atitinkamas reikšmes, apibūdinančias tiriamojo motorinę raidą, pastebėta, kad pirmos grupės, lankiusios plukdymo užsiėmimus, rodikliai yra statistiškai reikšmingai geresni nei antros (p < 0,05). Išanalizavus sergamumo dažnio pasiskirstymą tarp grupių nustatyta, kad pirmoje grupėje yra statistiškai reikšmingai daugiau nė karto nesirgusių tiriamųjų nei antroje, abiejose grupėse buvo vienodas skaičius tiriamųjų, sirgusių 1–2 kartus, antroje grupėje buvo daugiau tiriamųjų, sirgusių 3–4 kartus (p < Išvada. Tiriamųjų, lankiusių plukdymo užsiėmimus, motorinio išsivystymo lygio ir fizinės sveikatos būklės rodikliai buvo statistiškai reikšmingai geresni nei tiriamųjų, kuriems plukdymo užsiėmimai nebuvo taikomi.Raktažodžiai: kūdikiai, plukdymas, motorinė raida, fizinė sveikata.

Reflections on Motor Development Research Across the 20th Century: Six Empirical Studies That Changed the Field

Motor development research has had a rich history over the 20th century with a wide array of scientists contributing to a broad and deep body of literature. Just like the process of development, progress within the field has been non-linear, with rapid periods of growth occurring after the publication of key research articles that changed how we conceptualized and explored motor development. These publications provided new ways to consider developmental issues and, as a result, ignited change in our theoretical and empirical approaches within the field of motor development and the broader field of developmental psychology. In this paper, we outline and discuss six pioneering studies that we consider significant in their impact and in the field’s evolution, in order of publication: Halverson, 1931; Wild, 1938; Gibson & Walk, 1960; Connolly, Brown, & Bassett, 1968; Thelen & Fisher, 1982; Thelen & Ulrich, 1991. We have limited this review to empirical papers only. Together, they offer insight into what motor development research is, where it came from, why it matters, and what it has achieved.

Motor Development, a Field With a Bright Future

Movement is how we explore our environment—an array of motor behaviors and a degree of skillfulness are required for individuals to move, function, and survive. Metaphorically speaking, Janus, the ancient Roman god, has two faces, one facing into the past and one to the future. Before engaging in future scientific endeavors, researchers should reflect on the historical work in their field to help shape future inquiry. As we continue into the 21st century, motor development research must continue its commitment to conduct translational research in practice while engaging in impactful interdisciplinary research. Areas that warrant future exploration include (a) addressing the motoric needs of special populations; (b) understanding what occurs in the brain during movement—brain–behavior interaction; (c) discovering how our environment affects motor behaviors—gene–environment interaction; (d) exploring the effect of movement across the life span and on various aspects of health—developmental health outcomes; and (e) being cognizant of research design and measurements. Many questions remain to be answered, but motor development is a field with a bright future that awaits discovery.

The role of dynamic systems theory in motor development research: how does theory inform practice and what are the potential implications for autism spectrum disorder?

AbstractDynamic systems theory (DST) outlines three constraints (i.e. individual, task, and environment) that influence the emergence of behavior. These constraints interact with one another to self-organize and create a spontaneous behavior. For many researchers studying motor development, this spontaneous behavior refers to the production of motor movement. DST provides an explanation for the variability and spontaneous movement that occurs from individual to individual. While this theory is accepted as one of the major explanations of motor development, it is unknown how it is being utilized to inform the research on motor development or the development of interventions. In this review, the author found 18 instances in the literature where DST had been used to analyze, test, or manipulate motor patterns and movement. Overall, the studies report a positive effect from the manipulation of constraints with respect to a change in motor pattern. Only one study was found that sought to positively improve behavior through the directed use of constraints; the majority of studies sought to understand the influence constraints have on the production of movement.

Upper extremity function: What's posture got to do with it?

This perspective paper reviews the linkage between developing postural control and upper extremity function. We suggest updated principles for guiding clinical practice, based on current views from motor learning, motor development, and motor control research. Using three clinical examples, we illustrate principles focusing on the use of variability, the importance of errors in learning movement, task specific exploration and practice, and the critical timing necessary to build skill of the upper extremity in a variety of postures. These principles differ from historic approaches in therapeutic exercise, which treated posture as a separate system and a precursor for extremity skill building. We maintain that current movement science supports the tight interaction of posture and upper extremity function through developmental time and in real time, such that one system cannot be considered separate from the other. Specific suggestions for clinical practice flow from the guiding principles outlined in this paper.