Title: Psychomotor games as a mean of graphomotorics development in preschool children Objectives: The aim of this master thesis is to evaluate the level of graphomotor skills in kindergarten for preschool children and also evaluate the effect of psychomotor exercises and games on preschool children. . Methods: This is a quasi-experiment, which works with a targeted selection of a group of probands,children from a specific kindergarten. Twelve children were selected and dividend into research and kontrol group. Both groups included six probands, four boys and two girls.The level of graphomotor skills was tested by using the figure drawing test and tests from the MABC-2 battery. At the same time, it is a qualitative research, where the quality of execution of individual tasks and the hygiene of writing is monitored on the basis of non-standardized observation. Results: The results of the final testing showed an improvement in the control group of children in whom no psychomotor games were applied. Both groups had better final results in figure drawing test and in fine motor skills tests from the MABC- 2 battery. Keywords: psychomotor activities, children draw, preschool age, graphomotorics skills, figure drawing, fine motor skills

Although fine motor performance declines with increasing age, older adults are able to improve their performance with motor practice. However, existing studies show mixed results regarding an effect of age on the amount of learning. Moreover, less is known about how age- and learning dependent behavioral changes are reflected on a neurophysiological level. Alpha and, especially, beta power assessed using electroencephalography (EEG) represent reliable markers of neurophysiological processes during motor task performance that need more attention in aging literature. Moreover, acute cardiovascular exercise has been shown to improve motor performance and trigger motor learning processes in young adults. However, this promising approach has not been considered in aging literature so far. Furthermore, the physical fitness level seems to be positively associated with motor performance and motor learning processes. But again, less is known about this association in healthy older adults. Both approaches might help to better understand or even counteract age-related changes in fine motor performance and motor learning. To explore these research topics, two empirical studies were conducted within this dissertation project. In both studies, motor performance and motor learning were assessed on a behavioral level using a precision grip force modulation task. The force modulation task required participants to match a visually presented sinusoidal target force by applying isometric force with the thumb and index finger to a force plate. Processes on a neurophysiological level were measured with an EEG and analyzed with a main focus on (alpha and) beta power. Study 1 aimed to further characterize age-related differences in fine motor performance and motor learning on a behavioral and neurophysiological level. Furthermore, key influencing factors that determine fine motor performance and motor learning in older adults on a behavioral level were investigated. Hence, a sample of young adults and older adults performed a short-term motor learning session, conducted a cardiovascular fitness test, motor fitness tests, and strengths tests. Study 2 focused on the effects of a session of acute exercise on fine motor performance and motor learning in a sample of healthy older adults. Participants were assigned to an experimental group (performing a session of acute cardiovascular moderate intensity exercise on a stationary bicycle) or a control group (listening to an audiobook). Both groups performed a motor learning experiment over two consecutive days. Young adults outperformed older adults in terms of performance variability, temporal precision, and force precision in the force modulation task. The lower behavioral performance was accompanied by higher beta activity in parietal and occipital areas. Although results were different with respect to the analyzed parameter, overall, the amount of motor learning in the force modulation task was not diminished in older adults compared to young adults. Beta power during motor performance was not affected by motor practice. However, beta power at rest increased from pre practice to post practice, especially in older adults. Fine motor performance of older adults was increased more directly after an acute cardiovascular exercise session than after rest. Moreover, frontal beta activity was higher directly after exercise, pointing to better cognitive resources to perform the task after exercise than after rest. Third, a high cardiovascular fitness level predicted a good fine motor performance in the force modulation task in older adults. Findings of the current dissertation project enhance the understanding of age-related changes in fine motor performance and motor learning using a precision grip force modulation task. Furthermore, approaches are presented that counteract age-related changes, improve motor functions, and determine good levels of fine motor performance in healthy older adults.

The diploma thesis is focused on fine motor skills and laterality of preschool children with cerebral palsy. Based on previous researches was found out, that cerebral palsy is influencing fine motor skills. With reference to these researches, the aim of this thesis is to find out, if there is difference between intact prechool children and preschool children with cerebral pals in fine motor skills and what particular differences there is. The thesis include laterality and question of pronounction in preschool age. The theoretical part describes evolution of children, defines fine motor skills and laterality, deals with cerebral palsy and describes fine motor skills of children with cerebral palsy including previous researches. The empirical part defines the aims of research, explorational questions, methods of research and testing activities. Next part is focused on selection of respondents and their characterics. Main part presents results of testing my respondents, analysis of results and discussion. The research was made by interview and qustionary for parents, and following testing of fine motor skills containing three parts - testing of laterality, grips and general fine motor skills. In results is described existing difference between intact preschool children and children with cerebral...

Background: Due to the deficit of knowledge on fine motor skill far transfer from one domain of expertise to another, piano performance and surgical training serve as a relevant, interdisciplinary context in which to study the transfer of motor skills given both have relatively well-established levels of performance and require complex fine motor skills. Musicians tend to demonstrate greater ease in all aspects of procedural knowledge which are known to contribute to the early stages of motor learning. Previous research in the Piano Pedagogy Research Laboratory (PPRL) found that extensive piano training was correlated with faster learning of surgical knot-tying skills. However, the short-term two-day timeline was a limitation of the study. Objective: Our project has built on previous work in the PPRL to address the short-term nature of previous studies by measuring a long-term performance curve as well as retention of surgical training and also expanded on the previous project by focussing this time on laparoscopic tasks. This study compared performance curves of two participant groups (pianists and controls) over five consecutive days and retention one week later, as measured by speed and accuracy of task completion. Laparoscopic training consisted of six tasks repeated at every session. Since laparoscopy involves a variety of abilities concurrently, we also administered a battery of ten psychometric tests to isolate and measure specific aspects of non-motor and fine motor skills. Results: There was no statistical difference between participant groups on the majority of laparoscopic training and psychomotor assessments based on two-way mixed ANOVA and Mann-Whitney U test analysis, respectively. There were also little to no significant correlations between abilities and laparoscopic performance. The only significant confounding variable was that the control group was significantly more interested in surgery than the musician group (p = .037). Conclusion: Overall, these results demonstrate that piano performance training did not far transfer to laparoscopic surgery. This is relevant to the debate on far transfer of motor skills given this study’s robust design which addressed previous shortcomings by including a longer timeline and more specifications of musicians’ characteristics. Our findings indicate that fine motor skills are domain specific to music and surgery, respectively.

La coordinación de movimientos para realizar con precisión diversas acciones de nuestro día a día hacen que la motricidad fina sea una de las destrezas que debe ser estimulada desde temprana edad en los niños para lograr un mejor desenvolvimiento en su vida diaria. Por ello frente a la problemática que se ha podido observar en una institución educativa se propuso como objetivo diseñar un taller de manualidades para potenciar la motricidad fina en niños de cuatro años de edad. La metodología empleada en esta investigación es de diseño propositivo donde se aplicó un pre-test a una población de 25 estudiantes a través de una lista de cotejo la cual fue validada por cinco expertos para su aplicación. Se obtuvo como resultados que el 90% de los niños se encontraba en un nivel de inicio con respecto a su motricidad fina. Tomando en cuenta los resultados obtenidos se dio paso a la creación de “manos a la obra” 14 talleres de manualidades donde los niños pueden potenciar su coordinación motora fina. Por lo tanto, se concluye que la creación de estos talleres ayudará a potenciar las habilidades motoras finas de los niños haciéndolos partícipes de la realización de estos. / The coordination of movements to accurately carry out various actions in our daily lives makes fine motor skills one of the skills that must be stimulated from an early age in children to achieve better development in their daily lives. Therefore, in response to the problems that have been observed in an educational institution, the objective was to design a crafts workshop to enhance fine motor skills in four-year-old children. The methodology used in this research is a purposeful design where a pre-test was applied to a population of 25 students through a checklist which was validated by five experts for its application. The results were that 90% of the children were at a beginning level with respect to their fine motor skills. Taking into account the results obtained, we gave way to the creation of “get to work” 14 craft workshops where children can enhance their fine motor coordination. Therefore, it is concluded that the creation of these workshops will help enhance children's fine motor skills by making them participate in carrying them out.

Syftet med denna studie är att öka kunskapen om hur lärare upplever att elevers skrivinlärning samt finmotorik påverkas av den digitaliserade undervisningen som breder ut sig allt mer. Studien utgår från den teoretiska utgångspunkten, TPACK, för att ge en djupare förståelse om ämnet. Undersökningen bygger på kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer med tio lärare som integrerar digitala verktyg i läs- och skrivundervisningen. Analysen av resultatet genomfördes med hjälp av tematisk analysmetod. Resultatet visar att digitala verktyg kan vara ett bra tillvägagångssätt när det gäller skrivinlärning. De flesta av lärarna hävdar att elevernas motivation och skrivglädje för att skriva texter förstärks genom en ökad tillgänglighet för redigering och justering av textinnehåll, vilket i sin tur bidrar till ökad omfattning av textproduktion. Det finns dock en del negativa aspekter med digitala verktyg, vilket bland annat är att eleverna kan distraheras av hemsidor och diverse program som påverkar undervisningen negativt. Resultatet visar också att analoga skrivverktyg, såsom penna och papper, bör användas när eleverna tränar på att forma bokstäver då det bland annat gynnar arbetsminnets kapacitet och är väsentligt att kunna för deras framtida motoriska färdigheter. Sammanfattningsvis visar studien att de intervjuade lärarna anser att det mest gynnsamma för elevernas lärande är en integrering av både analoga och digitala verktyg inom ramen för läs- och skrivundervisningen.

This dissertation adresses the issue of preparation and readiness of a preschool child before his/her entrance to elementary school. The theoretical part is divided into four chapters. The first chapter is concerned with the definitions of basic terms, such as school maturity and school readiness. The second chapter is dedicated to developmental psychology of a preschool child. The third chapter is concerned with diagnosis of a preschool child from the position preschool education, and the last chapter is centered on a child at risk in elementary school. The practical part is dedicated to qualitative experimental investigation which obser- ves the advancement of teak parts in selected sample of children from normal and spe- cial class of kindergarten school and it is supported by an intervention program.

The graduation thesis is focused on the evaluation in motoric skills of sports gymnasts (n=18) aged between 7 to 10 years. The whole study took place in České Budějovice in the Merkur center with the support of a gymnastic team. For this experiment was used the methody called "MABC-2 formula" (Movement Assessment Battery for Children 2nd edition). The MABC-2 test is a standardized test that verifies a level of the motor function while indicating motor difficulties and difficulty in coordination. It consists of eight test items that are divided into three components. Individual components focus on testing fine motor skills (manual skill), gross motor skills (aiming and catching) and balance. After performing the MABC-2 test and obtaining gross scores for each item, we created tables and graphs of component and total test scores (TTS). We compared the results to the standardization norms this test battery and with other researches in this field that deal with motor testing using the MABC-2 test battery. At the basis of this comparison, we evaluated the level of motor skills in the tested group of gymnasts. This thesis confirmed that gymnasts achieved in all components above-average results. For evaluation of the gymnasts balance skills the MABC-2 wasn´t sensitive enought.

Various researchers highlight the role of neuro-motor and visual motor integration problems on learning-related barriers (Mutti et al., 1998; Goldstein & Britt, 1994; Kulp, 1999; Lotz et al., 2005; Van Roon et al., 2010). Visual motor integration and neuro-motor problems, that include perceptual, gross- and fine motor problems further relates to writing, reading, spelling and mathematical problems (Cheatum & Hammond, 2000). The visual system plays an important role in visual motor integration and researchers found ocular-motor control to correlate with learning-related problems and are therefore investigated (Vaughn et al., 2006). The aim of the study was twofold. The first aim was to determine the nature of neuro-motor problems that are present in 7- to 8-year old children with learning-related problems (writing, reading, spelling and mathematical problems). The second aim was to determine the nature of ocular-motor control and visual-motor integration that are present in 7- to 8-year old children with learning-related problems (writing, reading, spelling and mathematical problems). Sixty-eight learners (45 boys and 23 girls) with and without learning-related problems took part in the study. The group with learning-related problems (n=31) consisted of learners that received remedial intervention in Grade 1 and were in Grade 2 during the data collection. The control group (n=37) represented the study group for age and gender with a mean age of 7.5 years (SD=0.43) and had no learning-related problems. The Quick Neurological Screening Test II (QNST-II) and the Sensory Input Systems Screening Test (SISM) were used to determine the state of neuro-motor development and the visual and ocular-motor control status of learners. The Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration - 4th ed. (VMI-4) were used to evaluate the visual-motor integration of learners. The Statistica for Windows 2011 computer program was used to do the data processing (StatSoft, 2011). Differences between learners with and without learning-related problems were determined by an independent t-test. A multi-dimensional representation of learners with learning-related problems were established by means of a correspondence analysis of twoway variance tables with respect to reading, writing, spelling and mathematical problems. Results indicate that statistical as well as practical significant differences were found between learners with and without learning-related problems with respect to neuro-motor, visual-motor integration as well as ocular-motor problems. Neuro-motor problems were found between the two groups in visual, auditory, and tactile perception as well as different gross motor skills and were associated with reading, writing, spelling and mathematical problems. Regarding ocularmotor control and visual-motor integration, statistical- (p≤0,01) as well as practical (d≥0,8) significant differences were found between learners with and without learning related problems in visual-motor integration as well as 10 of the 11 sub-items of the SISM which include the following: fixation with both eyes, fixation with right eye, fixation with left eye, ocular alignment with right eye, ocular alignment with left eye, tracking with both eyes, tracking with right eye, tracking with left eye, vertical tracking and horizontal tracking. It can be concluded from the results that a significant correlation could be found between neuro-motor problems, that includes ocular-motor control as well as visual-motor integration and learning-related problems (reading, writing, spelling and mathematical problems). Neuromotor skills as well as visual-motor integration should therefore be incorporated in intervention of children with learning-related problems. / Thesis (MA (Kinderkinetics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

Various researchers highlight the role of neuro-motor and visual motor integration problems on learning-related barriers (Mutti et al., 1998; Goldstein & Britt, 1994; Kulp, 1999; Lotz et al., 2005; Van Roon et al., 2010). Visual motor integration and neuro-motor problems, that include perceptual, gross- and fine motor problems further relates to writing, reading, spelling and mathematical problems (Cheatum & Hammond, 2000). The visual system plays an important role in visual motor integration and researchers found ocular-motor control to correlate with learning-related problems and are therefore investigated (Vaughn et al., 2006). The aim of the study was twofold. The first aim was to determine the nature of neuro-motor problems that are present in 7- to 8-year old children with learning-related problems (writing, reading, spelling and mathematical problems). The second aim was to determine the nature of ocular-motor control and visual-motor integration that are present in 7- to 8-year old children with learning-related problems (writing, reading, spelling and mathematical problems). Sixty-eight learners (45 boys and 23 girls) with and without learning-related problems took part in the study. The group with learning-related problems (n=31) consisted of learners that received remedial intervention in Grade 1 and were in Grade 2 during the data collection. The control group (n=37) represented the study group for age and gender with a mean age of 7.5 years (SD=0.43) and had no learning-related problems. The Quick Neurological Screening Test II (QNST-II) and the Sensory Input Systems Screening Test (SISM) were used to determine the state of neuro-motor development and the visual and ocular-motor control status of learners. The Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration - 4th ed. (VMI-4) were used to evaluate the visual-motor integration of learners. The Statistica for Windows 2011 computer program was used to do the data processing (StatSoft, 2011). Differences between learners with and without learning-related problems were determined by an independent t-test. A multi-dimensional representation of learners with learning-related problems were established by means of a correspondence analysis of twoway variance tables with respect to reading, writing, spelling and mathematical problems. Results indicate that statistical as well as practical significant differences were found between learners with and without learning-related problems with respect to neuro-motor, visual-motor integration as well as ocular-motor problems. Neuro-motor problems were found between the two groups in visual, auditory, and tactile perception as well as different gross motor skills and were associated with reading, writing, spelling and mathematical problems. Regarding ocularmotor control and visual-motor integration, statistical- (p≤0,01) as well as practical (d≥0,8) significant differences were found between learners with and without learning related problems in visual-motor integration as well as 10 of the 11 sub-items of the SISM which include the following: fixation with both eyes, fixation with right eye, fixation with left eye, ocular alignment with right eye, ocular alignment with left eye, tracking with both eyes, tracking with right eye, tracking with left eye, vertical tracking and horizontal tracking. It can be concluded from the results that a significant correlation could be found between neuro-motor problems, that includes ocular-motor control as well as visual-motor integration and learning-related problems (reading, writing, spelling and mathematical problems). Neuromotor skills as well as visual-motor integration should therefore be incorporated in intervention of children with learning-related problems. / Thesis (MA (Kinderkinetics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.