Schedule Practice Time for Motor Skills

A new school year brings new students and new goals.  Most students who receive therapy services have goals related to fine and gross motor skill development.  As we know from motor learning theories individuals need practice time to learn and maintain motor skills.  Therefore, therapists need to provide suggestions for ample practice time during the […]

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Feedback Frequency with Children

Physical Therapy will be publishing research on the frequency of feedback that you should provide for children when learning a motor task.  Previous research with adults indicates that providing feedback 100% of the time when learning a new task is less effective than when less feedback is provided.  In addition, previous research has indicated that […]

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Motor Learning Versus Neurodevelopmental Treatment

A recent article in Clinical Rehabilitation compared two groups of children with cerebral palsy. Seventy eight children (ages 66-146 months) with spastic cerebral palsy (gross motor functional levels II and III) were divided into two groups. One group received motor learning coaching for 3x/week, one hour sessions, over three months. The other group received the […]

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Effects of Goal Directed, Activity Focused Group Physical Therapy for Kids with CP

BMC Pediatrics published a research study on the changes of basic motor abilities, quality of movement and everyday activities after intensive, goal directed, activity focused physical therapy is a group setting for children with cerebral palsy. Twenty two children (mean age 5 years, 6 months), hemiplegia (7), diplegia (11), quadriplegia (2) and ataxia (2), participated […]

Designing Optional Patterns of Movement

The November 2009 issue of Neuron reports on a study on how limb motion is encoded in the nervous system. The researchers determined that certain movement patterns were easier to learn than others. A quote from one of the researchers states: “We observed that the initial stages of motor learning are often quick but non-specific, […]