Coordinated movement is critical not only to sports technique and performance but to daily living and as such represents a fundamental area of research. Coordination requires being able to produce the right actions at the right time and has to incorporate perception, cognition, and forceful neuro-muscular interaction with the environment. Coordinated movements of the hands and fingers are some of the most complex activities undertaken where continuous learning and adaptation take place, but the temporal variability of the most basic movement components is still unknown. This thesis investigates the extent of temporal variability in the execution of four different simple hand and finger coordination tasks, with the purpose to find the various intrinsic temporal variability which limit the ability to coordinate the hands in space and time. Study one showed that in a synchronized bi-lateral two finger tapping test (<<1 cm movement to target) the best participant had a temporaltiming variability of 4.8 ms whereas the largest time variability could be as high as 24.8 ms. No obvious improvement was found after transfer practice, whereas the average time variability for asynchronized tapping decreased from 62.1 ms to 30.3 ms after instructed practice indicating a likely change in task grouping. Study two showed that in a unilateral thumb-index finger pinch and release test, the largest mean timing variability was 12 ms for pinching irrespective of performing the task in a slow alert manner or at a faster speed. However, the mean temporal variability for release was only 6.3 ms when the task was performed in a more alert manner and indicates that release is more accurately controlled temporally than grip. Study three suggested that in a unilateral sagittal plane throwing action of the lower arm and hand, that elbow and wrist coordination for dynamic index finger tip location was better with a radial-ulnar deviation, darts-type, throwing action than a wrist flexor-extensor type action, basketball free throw type action (the mean variability was 37.5 ms and 27.2 ms, respectively). Study four compared the variability in bi-lateral finger tapping between voluntary tapping and involuntary finger contraction tapping. Electrically stimulated neural contractions had significantly lower force onset variability than voluntary or direct magnetic stimulation of muscles (6 ms, 9.5 ms, and 10.3 ms for electrically stimulated, voluntary and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation stimulated contraction). This work provides a comprehensive analysis of the temporal variability in various fundamental digital movement tasks that can aid with the understanding of basic human coordination in sporting, daily living and clinical areas.

The problem of this study was to determine the effect of a modified form of Kephart's perceptual-motor training program on the performance of kindergarten pupils on Metropolitan Readiness Tests. This program was made up of certain perceptual-motor activities which were utilized during the regular school play periods.

Chez l’adulte, la production écrite est une activité motrice automatisée. L’écriture est fluide et rapide car la production de chaque lettre repose sur l’activation préalable d’une mémoire procédurale connue sous le terme « programme moteur » ou « carte sensori-motrice ». Nous nous sommes attachés à comprendre comment s’élaborent ces programmes moteurs au cours de l’apprentissage de l’écriture. Nous avons étudié comment l'écriture des enfants évoluait d’une programmation trait par trait à une programmation lettre à lettre. Dans toutes nos études nous avons enregistré les mouvements d’écriture des enfants à l’aide d’une tablette digitalisante. Dans la première expérience, 98 enfants de 6 à 9 ans devaient produire des lettres de complexité variable, dépendant de leur nombre de strokes. Les résultats ont indiqué qu’à 6 et 7 ans, la durée du mouvement, la dysfluence et la trajectoire augmentaient avec le nombre de strokes de la lettre. Chaque allographe était produit par l’activation du premier stroke, puis du deuxième stroke et ainsi de suite jusqu’à la réalisation de la lettre complète. Le nombre de strokes des lettres affectait beaucoup moins la production des enfants plus âgés. Les enfants regroupaient la programmation de ces strokes en chunks, qui augmentaient en taille progressivement pour aboutir, à la fin du processus d’automatisation, à une production lettre à lettre. L’analyse a révélé que les premiers automatismes se stabilisaient aux alentours de 8 ans. Toutefois, certaines lettres restaient représentées en chunks même chez les enfants les plus âgés. La nature du stroke à produire semblait affecter également la mise en place des automatismes. Ainsi, une autre expérience a été réalisée pour étudier l’impact de la production des strokes nécessitant des mouvements de rotation, indispensables à la production de traits courbés (e.g., pour la lettre o), et des mouvements de pointage nécessaires pour positionner l’outil scripteur après leur lever (e.g., pour mettre le point sur le i). Nous avons demandé à 108 enfants âgés de 6 à 10 ans d’écrire des séquences de lettres majuscules variant en termes de mouvements de pointage et de rotation. Les résultats ont indiqué que les pointages requerraient un compromis entre les durées des mouvements sur la feuille et en l’air. Les mouvements de rotation impliquaient une réduction de l’écart entre les vitesses maximales et minimales. Le respect d’un tempo de l’écriture semble gouverner ces stratégies compensatoires qui sont spécifiques au type de mouvement. Au niveau développemental, la présence de paliers dans les données cinématiques, laisse à penser que la majeure partie de l’évolution se situe dans la période 6-8 ans, et précède une phase de stabilisation entre 8 et 10 ans caractérisant le début de l’automatisation des mouvements d’écriture. Notre travail met ainsi en évidence que plus l’enfant grandit et pratique l’écriture, plus il/elle est capable de programmer des chunks d’informations plus importantes. Or, cette augmentation en taille de la mémoire procédurale n’est pas seulement quantitative, elle s’accompagne d’une gestion différentielle en fonction du type de stroke à réaliser. Le contenu du programme moteur ne se limiterait donc pas à des informations sur la forme, l’ordre et la direction des strokes mais détiendrait également des informations permettant la mise en place de stratégies cinématiques compensatoires pour des gestes spécifiques comme ceux de rotation et de pointage. Les programmes moteurs s’élaborent pendant le processus d’apprentissage, qui s’étale sur la période 6-7 ans. À partir de 8 ans, ces acquisitions commencent à s’automatiser avec la pratique et l’augmentation des capacités cognitives, attentionnelles et mnésiques. L’automatisation de l’écriture semble être acquise pour la plupart des lettres entre 9 et 10 ans, et devient alors un outil de communication langagière. Les implications de ces résultats sont directement applicables en milieu scolaire. / Written production is an automated motor activity for adults. Writing is smooth and fast because letter production relies on the prior activation of a procedural memory known as “motor program” or “sensori-motor map”. Our investigation focused on how motor programs develop during writing acquisition. We examined how writing evolved from stroke-to-stroke programming to letter-to-letter programming. In all our studies we recorded the children's writing movements with a digitizer. In the first experiment, 98 children aged 6 to 9 had to write letters of varying numbers of strokes. The results indicated that at ages 6-7, movement duration, dysfluency and trajectory increased with the letter’s number of strokes. The letters were produced by the activation of the first stroke, then the second stroke, and so on until the completion of the whole letter. The number of strokes affected much less the productions of the older children. They assembled the strokes into chunks, which gradually increased in size, until they could write, at the end of the automation process, with a letter-to-letter programming strategy. The analysis revealed that the first automatisms stabilized at age 8. However, some letters remained represented in chunks even among the older children. Specific types of strokes affected the stabilization of letter automation. We thus carried out another experiment to examine the impact of the rotation strokes that are necessary for the production of curved lines (e.g., to produce letter o) and the pointing movements that position the pen after a lift (e.g., to produce the dot on letter i). In the experiment, 108 children aged 6 to 10 wrote sequences of upper-case letters varying in pointing and rotation movements. The results indicated that the production of rotation movements required a speed trade-off to decrease differences between maximum and minimum velocities. Pointing movements required a duration trade-off between the movements executed on the sheet and in the air. There seems to be a sort of tempo for letter production that modulates letter production. This requires compensatory strategies that are cognitively demanding. At the developmental level, the kinematic data suggests that most of the learning process takes place between ages 6 to 8. Then there is stabilization phase that marks the beginning of writing automation. It evolves between ages 9 and 10. Our work thus revealed that as the child practices writing, the motor programs code increasingly bigger information chunks. This quantitative increase in procedural memory is also accompanied by qualitative information for certain types of strokes that require specific processing. Therefore, the content of motor programs is not limited to information about letter shape, stroke order and direction. Motor programs also code information on compensatory kinematic strategies for rotation and pointing movements. These motor programs are elaborated during the learning process between ages 6 to 7. At around age 8, with practice and the increase of cognitive, attentional and memory skills, they start to stabilize and become automated. At ages 9-10, writing is automated for most letters and becomes a linguistic communicational tool. The implications of these results are directly applicable in schools for the improvement of pedagogical tools in teaching writing.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-06T17:07:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 EVA VILMA ALVES DA SILVA.pdf: 1953839 bytes, checksum: 13904b9d74c474aa1e419d8aee1dfcdd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-02-10 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This study investigated the motor development of children with indication of TDC by an application of a motor intervention program. Participated in this study, 14 students of both sexes aged 10 to 11 years, which were intentionally distributed and divided into experimental group - G1 (n=7) and control group - G2 (n=7). The experiment was established in four phases: pre-test, motor intervention program, post-test and re-test. In pretests phase, all participants were assessed by using the motor test MABC-2. The motor intervention was performed in 12 weeks with sessions of 45 minutes, 3 times a week, attended only the G1 schoolchildren. In the post-test, we evaluated the motor development of both groups. In the re-test, only G1 was analyzed. The lifestyle questionnaire was analyzed using EVIA questionnaire adapted by Torres and Gaya (1997). To assess the nutritional status were used BMI and body mass as reference data for children and adolescents 5-19 years of the WHO (2007), as well the Z-scores values of BMI for age. Academic performance was assessed using TDE Test (STEIN, 1994). Data were analyzed using SPSS 13.0 for Windows. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the participants about the lifestyle, nutritional status and academic performance. And inferential statistics with the nonparametric Wilcoxon test to determine the effect of the intervention program and maintenance of motor skills learned in the motor development of schoolchildren. In the comparison between groups was no significant difference (p = &#8805; 0.05) in total scores of the MABC-2 between the averages for the G1 compared to G2 in the posttest. The results confirmed a significant difference (p = &#8805; 0.05) to verify the maintenance of the effect of motor intervention in G1 between post-test and re-test. As for the lifestyle, the students were characterized by sedentary lifestyles. By checking the nutritional status, frequency of obesity was greater for boys and girls to eutrophic. As for school performance had significantly improved (p = &#8805; 0.05) after intervention. The conclusion is that there were significant improvements in motor skills of the students after the program, confirming the hypothesis that an intervention program improves the motor development of children with DCD. About reassessment of retention after three months, it was confirmed that there was no retention of motor skills learned in the intervening program / Este estudo investigou o desenvolvimento motor de escolares com indicativo de TDC a partir da aplicação de um programa de intervenção motora. Participaram do estudo 14 escolares de ambos os sexos com idade de 10 a 11 anos, os quais foram distribuídos intencionalmente, sendo divididos em grupo experimental G1 (n=7) e grupo controle G2 (n=7). O delineamento experimental foi estabelecido em quatro fases: pré-teste, programa de intervenção motora, pós-teste e re-teste. Na fase de pré-teste, todos os participantes foram avaliados utilizando o teste motor MABC-2. A intervenção motora foi realizada durante 12 semanas com sessões de 45 minutos 3 vezes por semana. No pós-teste, foi avaliado o desenvolvimento motor de ambos os grupos. Sendo analisado no re-teste somente o G1. O estilo de vida foi analisado através do questionário EVIA adaptado por Torres e Gaya (1997). Para avaliar o estado nutricional foram utilizados o IMC e a massa corporal, conforme os dados de referência para crianças e adolescentes de 5 a 19 anos da OMS (2007), bem como os valores de escores-Z do IMC para a idade. O desempenho acadêmico foi avaliado com o Teste TDE (STEIN, 1994). Os dados foram analisados através do SPSS 13.0 for Windows. Sendo utilizada estatística descritiva para caracterização dos participantes quanto ao estilo de vida, estado nutricional e desempenho acadêmico. E estatística inferencial com o teste não paramétrico Wilcoxon para verificar o efeito do programa de intervenção motora e a manutenção das habilidades aprendidas no desenvolvimento motor dos escolares. Na comparação entre os grupos, foi evidenciada diferença significativa (p=&#8805;0.05) nos escores totais do MABC-2 entre as médias para o G1 quando comparados ao G2 na fase de pós-teste. Os resultados confirmaram diferença significativa (p=&#8805;0.05) ao verificar a manutenção do efeito da intervenção motora no grupo G1 entre o pós-teste e o reteste. Quanto ao estilo de vida, os escolares foram caracterizados com hábitos de vida sedentários. Ao verificar o estado nutricional, a frequência maior foi de obesidade para os meninos e eutrofia para as meninas. Quanto ao desempenho escolar, houve melhora significativa (p<0.05) após a intervenção. Conclui-se que houve melhoras significativas nas habilidades motoras dos escolares após o programa, confirmando a hipótese de que um programa de intervenção motora melhora o desenvolvimento motor de escolares com TDC. Quanto a reavaliação da retenção após os três meses, foi confirmado que não houve retenção das habilidades motoras aprendidas no programa interventivo

Syftet med detta arbete är att få en bild av vilka faktorer som är mest betydelsefulla för att lära sig motoriska färdigheter i bollspel och koppla detta till lärandeteori. Finns det skillnader i uppfattning om man är nybörjare eller har erfarenhet från bollspel? Spelar kön och ålder någon roll? Vilken lärandeteori värderas högst? För att ge en bakgrund till problemställningen görs en genomgång av tidigare forskning och en beskrivning av två dominerande lärandeteorier, Generella motoriska programteorin och Dynamiska systemteorin med tillhörande didaktiska och motoriska begrepp inom lärande och bollspel. Frågor har ställts i enkätform till två olika undersökningsgrupper, dels 112 studenter från enheten Idrottsvetenskap vid Lärande och samhälle, Malmö högskola och dels 129 elever från grundskolan och gymnasieskolan i två mellanskånska orter. Undersökningsgrupperna har fått värdera faktorer som anses betydelsefulla för att lära sig motoriska färdigheter i bollspel. Svaren har bearbetats i statistikprogrammet SPSS så att frekvensfördelning, skillnader och samband kan analyseras. Resultaten i undersökning 1, på studenter, visar att Sociala och psykologiska faktorer somkommunikation och motivation är högst värderade. 90 % av studenterna har värderat motivation till högst betydelse för att lära sig färdigheter i bollspel. Studenternas värdering av faktorer som sammankopplas med lärandeteorierna GMP- och DS-teorin visar att båda teorierna värderas likvärdigt. Studenterna uppvisar också samstämmighet i förhållande till kön, ålder och bollspelserfarenhet. De skillnader som finns redovisas. Elevernas svar, i undersökning 2, visar att faktorer som indikerar engagemang och motivation, har den största betydelsen för att lära sig motoriska färdigheter i bollspel. Eleverna värderar faktorer som sammankopplas till DS-teorin och ett indirekt lärande signifikant högre än faktorer som sammankopplas till GMP-teorin och ett direkt lärande. Elevundersökningen uppvisar resultat med signifikanta skillnader mellan könen. Flickor värderar faktorer som indikerar engagemang signifikant högre än pojkarna. Pojkarna värderar faktorer som indikerar fysisk förmåga signifikant högre än flickorna. Enskilda faktorer som instruktion, repetition och demonstration, har flickor värderat signifikant högre än pojkar. Betydelsen av bollspelserfarenhet och ålder har inte spelat någon större roll för hur eleverna har gjort sina värderingar. / The purpose of this work is to understand which factors are most important in learning motor skills in ball games and attach this to learning theory. Are there differences in the perception if you are a beginner or have experience from ball games? Makes gender or age any difference? Which learning theory is most valued? To give a background to the issue, a review of previous research and a description of the two dominant learning theories, General motor program theory and Dynamical systems theory is done together with didactic aspects and motor concept in learning and ball games. Questions have been raised in the questionnaire form to two different study groups, and 112 students from the institution of Sports and Science at Learning and society, Malmö University and part 129 pupils from a primary school and a secondary school in Skåne.Investigation teams have been assessing factors considered to be significant in learning motor skills in ball games. The answers have been processed in SPSS statistical programme, so that the frequency distribution, variation and correlation can be analyzed. The result of survey 1, students, reveals that the social and psychological factors such as communication and motivation are most valued. 90% of students have assessed motivation to a maximum importance to learn skills in ball games. Students ' evaluation of factors linked to learning theories GMP and DS theory shows that both theories are valued equally. Students demonstrate coherence in relation to gender, age and ball game experience. The differences are accounted for. The pupils ' responses, in study 2, shows that the factors which indicates commitment and motivation, have the greatest importance in learning motor skills in ball games. The pupils in this survey value factors linked to DS theory and an indirect learning significantly higher than factors linked to the GMP theory and direct learning. The pupils´ survey results show significant differences between the sexes. Girls value the factors indicating commitment significantly higher than boys. The boys value the factors that indicate physical ability significantly higher than the girls. Individual factors such as instruction, rehearsal and demonstration, have girls valued significantly higher than boys. The importance of ball game experience and age has not played a major role in how the pupils have done their values.