The prescription of appropriate seating for children and young adults with a motor handicap is a complex issue requiring a clear identification of the child's physical ability in all postures. Recent work by Pountney et al. (1990) has shown how the development of lying ability is linked to sitting ability. This emphasises the importance of the total approach to assessment and prescription of se...

The aim of this study was to explore motor impairment in male adolescents suffering from psychiatric conditions. Taking into account the heterogeneity of a clinical population, motor profiles of distinctive diagnostic groups were evaluated. Whether or not motor ability discriminates between several diagnostic categories was investigated. The Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second...

BACKGROUND Previous research has shown that cognitive and motor skills are related. The precise impact of cognitive impairment on sport proficiency, however, is unknown. AIMS This study investigated group and individual differences in cognitive profiles in a large cohort of track and field athletes, basketball players, swimmers and table tennis players with (N=468) and without (N=162) intelle...

Motivation to move has typically been a post hoc explanation for infants' discovery of new patterns of behavior. As a first step to studying motivation to move directly, we qualitatively assessed motivation to move and measured its relationship to motor development in infancy. We observed 27 infants longitudinally from ages 7 to 12 months. Every 3 weeks we assessed infants' motor motivation bas...

Experimental studies show intact implicit motor learning in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) but the results for patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) are inconclusive. This study tests implicit sequence learning in AD and PD patients, and healthy controls, using the classical Serial Reaction Time Task (SRTT), and a somewhat similar Pattern Learning Task (PLT), which involves stylus move...

How do infants learn to perceive the backs of objects that they see only from a limited viewpoint? Infants' 3-dimensional object completion abilities emerge in conjunction with developing motor skills--independent sitting and visual-manual exploration. Infants at 4.5 to 7.5 months of age (n = 28) were habituated to a limited-view object and tested with volumetrically complete and incomplete (ho...

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are powerful tools for exploring, investigating and managing our ocean resources. As the capabilities of these platforms continue to expand and they continue to mature as operational assets, navigation remains a fundamental technological component. This chapter presents a road map for the vehicle designer to aid in integrating the latest navigation methods ...

Difficulty with handwriting is one of the most frequent reasons that children in the public schools are referred to occupational therapy. Current research on the influence of ergonomic factors, such as pencil grip and pressure, and perceptual-motor factors traditionally believed to affect handwriting, is reviewed. Factors such as visual perception show little relationship to handwriting, wherea...

The purpose of this study was to examine the possibility of using the Wolański Gross Motor Evaluation (WGME), to effectively screen Moroccan infants for motor disabilities. Additionally, the appropriateness of Polish norms for use with Moroccan children was considered. One hundred and twenty subjects, 15 females and 15 males from four age groups (three, six, nine and 12 months), were recruited ...

Age is often associated with a decline in cognitive abilities that are important for maintaining functional independence, such as learning new skills. Many forms of motor learning appear to be relatively well preserved with age, while learning tasks that involve associative binding tend to be negatively affected. The current study aimed to determine whether age differences exist on a configural...