This project measured the effectiveness of after school physical activity programs which emphasized moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and motor skill improvement. Children (n=41) from sport-based program and low-organized games-based programs were recruited. MVPA was measured using accelerometry and motor skill proficiency via the Test of Gross Motor Proficiency 2. Although, children in both programs participated in significant MVPA (more than 50% of program time engaged in MVPA), sport-based program participants obtained significantly (p<0.05) more MVPA. Children in the games-based program experienced a greater increase in gross motor quotient scores, though not significant (p>0.05), but with a moderate effect size (?=0.06). Overall after school physical activity programs provide positive contributions to daily MVPA. Participants in low-organized games based programs may experience a greater increase in motor skill proficiency. Further research is needed to determine the effects of program type on MVPA and motor skill development.

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Phenytoin is well-known antiepileptic drug with high anticonvulsant effect but also with proven side effects on motor activities associated with its long-term use. This thesis summarizes side effects of phenytoin on motor skills and coordination of rats after acute phenytoin treatment. Theoretical part includes proven effects of phenytoin on human and animal model. Knowledge about motor skills development of rats and comparison with human motor skills development is also included in the thesis. Apart from locomotion development, swimming development is also described. We compared three groups of rats in the experiment. Each group consisted of ten rats. We compared group with dosage 60 mg/kg, 30 mg/kg, control group and vehicle group. Each group was tested before application for control. We tested animals on postnatal day 12, 18 and 25. Effects of phenytoin were evaluated by motor skills testing and swimming analyses. The results of this thesis have proved impaired motor skills and coordination after phenytoin treatment of 12 and 25 days old rats.

Barn och vuxna blir allt mindre fysiskt aktiva medborgare vilket i sin tur leder till att hälsan påverkas negativt. Genom att utveckla barn och ungas grovmotoriska förmåga ökas deras fysiska aktivitet vilket i sin tur leder till en bättre hälsa. Forskare visar att idrottslärare har en viktig roll då deras didaktiska kunskaper ger ökad chans till motorisk utveckling hos eleverna och att skolan är en optimal plattform för utvecklingen då många elever endast utövar fysiska aktiviteter i just skolan. Genom mina studier i ämnet idrott och hälsa har jag valt att skriva denna litteraturstudien i just ämnet idrott och hälsa. Litteraturstudien är indelad i tre frågeställningar där den första belyser hur grovmotorik påverkar barn och ungas fysiska förmåga/aktivitet, den andra hur grov motorisk träning/förmåga påverkar elevers skolprestationer och den sista hur den fysiska aktivitetens och motoriska förmågan påverkar elevers självbild. Studien är baserad på elva vetenskapliga artiklar som alla undersökt sambandet mellan grov motorisk förmåga och fysisk aktivitet och dess påverkan på elever på olika sätt. Resultaten visar att en förbättrad grov motorisk förmåga ökar mängden fysisk aktivitet hos barn och unga och att en god grovmotorik kan påverkaelevers skolprestationer positivt. Resultaten visar även att elever med god grovmotorik blir mer socialt accepterade av sina klasskamrater vilket ger en bättre självbild. Det främsta resultatet som framkommit av litteraturstudien är att barn och unga som besitter en god motorisk förmåga kommer tenderar att bli mer fysiskt aktiva än ett barn med sämre motorisk förmåga, barnet kommer även ha en större chans att få ett mer fysiskt aktivt liv.

Sport has become a very competitive business and focus has been placed on reaching ones full potential. Visual involvement in a sport varies according to environmental demands associated with that sport. These environmental demands are matched by a task specific motor response. The primary aim of this study was to determine if visual skills training programmes could produce beneficial performance results for cricket and soccer players. In order to measure the athletic ability of a cricket and soccer player it is important not only to measure the hardware visual skills of the player, but also the player’s hand-eye co-ordination ability and software visual skills. Thus, aspects of the nervous system such as perceptual motor co-ordination, reaction time and anticipation ability should also be measured to get an indication of the player’s performance ability. In this study highly skilled cricket players and highly skilled soccer academy players, who were actively participating at a provincial level of competition, served as subjects. Due to professional reasons, the soccer academy players had to withdraw from this study. The provincial cricket players continued for the duration of the programme. Thus, due to the abovementioned the aim of this study was two fold, to determine whether statistically significant differences exist between the pre and post-training measurements of cricket players on several visual skills tests and secondly to determine whether statistically significant differences exist between the pre-training measurements of cricket and soccer players on the various visual skills measurements. The data of the variables tested were coded in computer format and statistically evaluated. Since the sample is relatively small non-parametric statistics were used to analyse the data. Two different Non-parametric t-tests were used: the Wilcoxon test is the distribution-free analogue of the t-test for related samples and the Mann-Whitney test is the distribution-free alternative to the independent samples t-test and was used for testing the differences between the means of the cricket players and the soccer players. After the initial testing the cricket players participated in an eight-week visual skill and performance skills programme for 60 minutes a day, once a week. The programme included sports vision activities, speed and agility activities and ball skills activities. Hereafter a retest was done. The pre-training and post-training values of the cricket players were recorded and significance of difference was determined by using the Wilcoxon signed-ranks test. The experimental research revealed that the visual skills programme did have a significant influence on most of the tested variables (ball handling skills, co-ordination, visual awareness, eye tracking skills, accuracy, peripheral awareness, pro-action – reaction skills and visual concentration). For some variables that were tested on the experimental group (the cricket players) improvements were found, which indicates that the improvements can be ascribed to the visual skills programme. The results indicated that more than half of the variables tested improved. It can thus be concluded that the hypothesis that was set for this paper has been proven right. Statistics indicated that there was an increase in most of the variables tested (ball handling skills, co-ordination, visual awareness, eye tracking skills, accuracy, peripheral awareness, proaction – reaction skills and visual concentration), which prove then that visual skills training will result in an increase in the players’ visual fields resulting to an increase in the visual skills on and off the cricket fields. Visual skills training programmes are beneficial to competitive sports performance. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Biokinetics, Sport and Leisure Sciences / unrestricted

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