Motor Skills

Motor Skill

An act or task that requires voluntary body and limb movement to be properly performed.

Acquisition of a motor skill

The process in which a learner develops a set of motor responses into an integrated and organized movement pattern. Is a consequence of training and practice

Ability

A general enduring trait affected by learning and heredity, such as balance.

Skill

Specific to a given task and gained through experience. Performing balance beam in a gymnastics, a skill that requires the ability to balance

Motor abilities

Separate components that contribute to how skill learning occurs, such as muscular strength, cardiovascular endurance, and reaction time.

Characteristics of Skillful Motor Performance

1. Products of a fast output of high-quality

2. An appearance of ease and smoothness of movement

3. Anticipation of variations in the stimulus situation before they arrive

4. Reduction in time to choose responses  once the signal is identified

Motor Skill Classification System

Determines which components of a skill are common or similar to components of another skill, such as gross vs. fine, discrete vs. continuous, and closed vs. open.

Gross motor skills

Involve large musculature as the primary basis of movement, such as walking and throwing. Precision of movement is not an important component, the smooth coordination of the movement is essential to the skilled performance of these tasks

Fine motor skills

Skills that require the ability to control small muscles of the body to achieve the successful execution of the skill for precise movements. Skills involve hand-eye coordination and require a high degree of precision of movement, such as writing and piano playing.

Discrete motor skills

Have clearly defined beginning and end points, such as throwing a ball or hitting a key on a computer. Can be put together in a series (serial motor skills), starting a standard transmission automobile, a dance routine, shooting an arrow in archery

Continuous motor skills

Have arbitrary beginning and end points, such as steering a car or swimming. The performer or some external force determines the beginning or end point of the skill rather than the skill itself like steering a car or swimming or running

Closed motor skills

Performed in a stable and predictable environment, such as golf or weightlifting. It is self-paced, stimulus waits to be acted on by the performer and requires similar responses each time a response is required. Things like golf, bowling, weightlifting and swimming

Open motor skills

Performed in a constantly changing and less predictable environment, such as hitting a tennis ball or playing team sports. It is externally paced and performance is required to make rapid modifications in her plan of action to match the demands of the situation. A performer must act according to the action of the object or the characteristics of the environment. Like hitting a tennis ball and base ball and team sports.

Fundamental Movement skills

Foundational movements used in play, dance, and sport, such as throwing, catching, running/ agility, coordination and balance. Phys ed teachers use their knowledge of fundamental movements to helping children develop their motor skills

Physical Literacy

The motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge, and understanding to engage in physical activities for life. Ideally Fundamental movement skills and physical literacy are developed in childhood and maintained through life:

• Active children and youth are more likely to stay active into adulthood

• Top athletes are likely to have participated in more sports earlier and specialized later

• Children who develop early motor competencies are more physically active during childhood

Active for Life

The development of fundamental movement skills at a young age will help our population gain the confidence to move throughout their lives which results in greater participation in physical activity and create broad health benefits for our population

Stages of Skill Acquisition

Cognitive stage, associative stage, and autonomous stage.

Motor Learning

A relatively permanent change in the performance levels of a motor task as a result of practice. Subdivided into 2 categories

Sensorimotor adaptation

A category of motor learning, responding to altered environmental or body conditions to regain a previous level of performance. Recover of function following neurological injury

Skill Learning

Acquiring new muscle activation patterns to achieve a greater level of performance. Learning to ride a bike

Augmented Feedback

Feedback that comes from someone or something external to the person, such as knowledge of results (KR) and knowledge of performance (KP). Distinct from sensory feed back which comes from the learners own sensory system

Positive Transfer

When experience with a previous skill aids or facilitates the learning of a new skill. Higher the degree of similarity, the greater the amount of positive transfer that can be expected between them

Negative Transfer

When experience with a previous skill interferes with the learning of a new skill. like forehand in tennis vs badminton. occurs when a new response is required for an old stimulus - different keyboard. Generally be seen only in specific aspects of an activity. Affects are typically temporary: usually over come quickly with practice

Zero Transfer

When experience with a previous skill has no influence on the learning of a new skill.

Bilateral transfer of learning

Improvement in performance from one limb as a result of practice with the opposite limb. Important in motor skills like dribbling a basketball or kicking a soccer ball

Practice

The amount and variety of practice affect the quality of learning. Purpose is to learn to perform skill in situation that will be tested. Conditions should be establish in a way to lead max test performance. Essential to have variety of practices.

Mental practice

The cognitive rehearsal of a physical skill in the absence of overt, physical practice. Reinforces a proper response as an aid to an upcoming response. Effective aid in acquisitions, performance and retention of motor skills. Benefit instructor can ask students to mentally practice while waiting for equipment

Gross vs. Fine

Based on the precision of movement. Most commonly used in special education, adapted physical education and rehabilitation. physical therapist usually works with gross motor skill and occupational therapists work on fine motor skills

Discrete vs. Continuous

Based on distinctiveness of beginning and end pints of the movement. Commonly used by motor learning researchers and in human engineering and human factors

Closed vs. Open

Based on stability of the environment in which the skill is performed, commonly used in physical education.

What can the maintenance of physical literacy can contribute significantly to the prevention of:

• Chronic disease risk

• Mobility issues

• Maintenance of activities of daily living

• Psychological health

Functional Health

as a population is aging, they experience more declines in functional health, measured by physical literacy which reduced quality of life, Decreased functional health increase Health care costs and reduced the economic productivity of a population. Increase functional health (durability) will increase the capacity of individuals to avoid poor health and recover more quickly

Cognitive stage

Performer is attempting to form a mental plan that will govern their actions. Errors are made frequently and tend to be large. Performance is highly variable

Associative stage

Performer moves to this stage when he is able to reproduce a reasonable approximation of the desired movement. The task of the performer is to refine the necessary movements required for the execution of the task. Errors are no longer large

Autonomous stage

Movements that make up the motor responses are automated and where, appropriate, spare attention may be devoted to other tasks such as open skills, and game strategy. it is a  result of a tremendous amount of practice and the Variability of performance is small. Small improvements in skill do continue in this satge

Continuum in motor learning

Learners do not abrupt moves from one stage to the next

Performance curves

An assessment of learning. Plot of the level achieved on the performance measure across time and assess improvement and consistency of performance

Retention Test

An assessment of learning. Assesses on the performance of learned skill after a period of time following practice. Assess the persistence of improve performance

Transfer of learning

The influences of a previously practice skill on the learning of a new skill and is important in teaching of motor skills

Sensory vs Augmented feedback

Learner’s own sensory system vs Someone or something external to the learner

Role of Augmented Feedback is to facilitate success of the motor skill

• Allows learner to determine if they're appropriately performing the skill

• Motivate the learner to continue to try to reach their goal

• Not all situation benefit from or require feedback

Knowledge of Results (KR)

Info about the outcome of performing a skill or about achieving the goal of the performance. Could refer to the results or could be a yes or no regarding if the goal was achieved. "You walked 5m more than yesterday”

Knowledge of Performance (KP)

Information about the movement characteristics that led to the performance outcome. can be verbal or by non-verbal means (video replay). “you should bend at your knees more as you walk”

Benefits of KR

• To confirm own assessments of trask-intrinsic feedback

• When learner can't determine the outcome of performing skill

  • When result is not visible to learner

• To motivate

• When practitioners and coaches want learner to problem solve by making trial and error

Benefits of KP

• Motor skills require specific movement characteristics

  • Gymnastic stunts or figure skating jumps

• Highly coordinated movement components of a skill must be improved or corrected

• The goal (not necessarily movement) of the action is kinematic, kinetic or specific muscle activity not readily observable

• KR is redundant with task-intrinsic

 

What should the content of Augmented Feedback Relate To?

Don’t provide erroneous feed back, learner will use it. Provide error info as it is more effective to facilitate skill learning. Qualitative infor is better at the beginning compared to quantitative

What info to give as KR/KP

Shouldn’t be more or less info than what the learner can handle. Info that will direct attention to the skill that must be corrected. shouldn’t be given every trial

Videotape as a method of KR and KP

Skill level of the student is a critical factor- beginners need the aid of an instructor to point out information from the replay and Meaningful information must be represented

Open vs close skills, practice

Increasing the variability within each practice session is preferred to practicing one variation during one, and another one in another session. Amount of practice affects the quality of learning although the effect is not always proportion. Spacing or distribution of practice can affect both practice performance and learning