As motor learning in individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) has been poorly elucidated, this study aimed to apply an acute aerobic exercise (AE), well-known intervention favorable to motor learning in typically developing individuals, to assist people with ID in motor learning, and examine its underlying mechanisms via EF and EEG assessments. 17 adults with ID (11 males, aged 31.41 ± 9.7, & mental aged 7.69 ± 3.06) participated in this within-group counterbalanced study. They participated in 2 interventions, a vigorous treadmill walking (AE) or seated rest (CON) condition, with having a month of wash-out period in between interventions. The pre-test, post-test, 24-hour retention test, and 7-day retention test was administered, and each testing phase administered a golf putt performance under both original (i.e., with guideline) and transfer putt tasks (i.e., without guideline), EF (i.e., Knock and Tap test, forward and backward Digit span test, forward and backward Corsi block test), and resting EEG assessment. Golf putting accuracy in post-test was not significantly different from the pre-test; however, the putt accuracy under the transfer putt task indicated an interaction effect at 24-hour retention test phase compared to pre-test, F(1, 32) = 5.26, p = .03, ηp2 = .14, and paired t-test indicated a near significant improvement in putt accuracy in AE (p = .07), but not in CON condition (p = .23). The pre-test and 7-day retention phases did not indicate a significant effect on golf putt skill. As EF variables and resting EEG temporal alpha asymmetry (TAA) remained unchanged throughout the procedure, underlying mechanisms of change in putt skill need to be further investigated. This study revealed a trend that the AE positively influenced golf putt accuracy and offline motor memory consolidation at 24-hour retention phase, but the effects were not statistically significant. Given that the study procedure did not include practice blocks, the observed positive impact of AE on golf putt accuracy is promising; thus, a future study is recommended to further verify the benefit of AE on motor learning in individuals with ID, as well as with rigorous EF and EEG measures to elucidate possible underlying mechanisms of AE-dependent improvement in motor skill.

The advantages of an external focus of attention are very consistent within the motor learning literature. That is, focusing on cues external to the body while performing a task will allow for greater motor skill learning and performance benefits compared to focusing internally. Likewise, there is a vast consistency within the self-regulated learning literature. Individuals that are allowed to alter or adjust a certain characteristic of their practice environment have consistently performed significantly better than individuals following a predetermined practice arrangement mirroring the schedule determined by their self-regulated counterpart. The purpose of this study was to investigate the motor skill learning and performance benefits of choice in attentional focus instructions while executing a golf putt. It was hypothesized that in practice: the self-regulated and control groups will perform similar to each other, but both will perform better than the yoked group; all participants will perform better when focusing externally rather than internally; and a majority of participants within all groups would indicate that focusing externally rather than internally elicited greater performance benefits by the end of practice on day 1. It was also hypothesized that the self-regulated and control groups will perform similar to each other on the retention and transfer tests, but both will perform better than the yoked group; and finally, a majority of participants would indicate that focusing externally rather than internally will elicit greater performance benefits by the end of the retention and transfer tests respectively. The results from this study indicated that the self-regulated and control groups performed similar to each other during practice, retention and transfer, but did not differ significantly from the yoked group. Also, approximately only 40% of all participants believed that adopting an external focus of attention would elicit greater performance benefits than an internal focus during practice, retention and transfer. This study provides practitioners with an increased understanding of how a participant-controlled learning environment affects which focus of attention is adopted by the learner. Since the advantages of an external focus of attention are robust, and there appeared to be no clear preference for using one focus over the other when given a choice, it might be appropriate to suggest that practitioners should continue to promote an external focus of attention in their learning environments until further research investigating the interactions of self-regulated practice and attentional focus are conducted.

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