Evidence suggests that children struggle to acquire age-appropriate fundamental movement skills (FMS), despite their importance for facilitating physical activity. This has led to calls for routine school-based screening of children's FMS. However, there is limited research exploring schools' capacity to conduct such assessments. This study…

It has been stated that a criterion of a threshold concept is that it is troublesome or difficult to understand. However, not all difficult concepts are also threshold concepts. This article explores this difference through the context of students' difficulties in learning prosthetics and two models of describing threshold concepts. Students and…

A child's early school years provide a crucial platform for them to develop fundamental movement skills (FMS), yet it has been acknowledged that there is a shortage of suitable FMS assessment tools for teachers to use within schools. To begin to address this shortfall, the purpose of this study was to elicit expert recommendations for the design…

Background: In this paper, we explore physical education from a relational worldview. Theoretically guided by an ecological dynamics framework, this perspective calls us to conceptualise 'education' in its etymological roots -- ex-ducere -- meaning 'to lead' an individual 'out' into the world. In doing so, an educator would employ a 'softer'…

Contemporary learning and development models have identified parkour-style training as a vehicle for athlete enrichment. However, perceptions of team-sport coaches and their receptiveness to such models of athlete enrichment have not been investigated and remain unclear. To explore how parkour-style training could be integrated into athlete…

Poor physical development in young children has been shown to impact readiness for school, behaviour, social development and academic achievement. This research sought to explore whether a physical intervention programme (Movement for Learning) can improve children's physical development. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children (2nd edition,…

A body of research indicates the importance of interventions for promoting the development and progress of children with visual impairments. However, the research available on suitable interventions for this population is relatively sparse. The purpose of this review is to identify, collate and appraise the available research evidence on…

Purpose: Variability in the timing of infant developmental milestones is poorly understood. We used a twin analysis to estimate genetic and environmental influences on motor development and activity levels in infancy. Method: Data were from the Gemini Study, a twin birth cohort of 2,402 families with twins born in the United Kingdom in 2007.…

Objectives: Drumming may have therapeutic and learning benefits but there exists little causal evidence regarding the benefits for children with emotional and behavioral difficulties (EBD) such as Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Methods: Six EBD pupils (EBD Drum) and six peers (Peer Drum) were given 2, 30-min rock drumming lessons per week, over 5…

Background: Psychomotor therapy enables people to reflect on the relationship between experiences and feelings by starting from awareness of bodily responses rather than from awareness of emotion. In this study we examine PsyMot (ID), an assessment that directs this psychological therapy. Method: Twelve suitable consecutive admissions were…

Since the establishment of Acting Studies, movement has always been a part of actor training. In the current vocational training institutions in the UK, movement for actors covers a wide range of subjects, including dance, somatics and movement practices. The aim of this research was to collect information about the dance techniques considered…

This article discusses motor-life-skills in a sample (n?=?1083) of 33 months (2.9-year-old) children in Norwegian early childhood education and care institutions (ECEC-institutions) and to compare the findings with the results from a similar British sample. The Early Years Movement Skills Checklist (EYMSC) (Chambers and Sugden 2006) was applied.…

Despite the widespread interest in using and researching simulation in higher education, little discussion has yet to address a key pedagogical concern: difficulty. A "sociomaterial" view of learning, explained in this paper, goes beyond cognitive considerations to highlight dimensions of material, situational, representational and…

The present study implemented a sign-repetition task at two points in time to hearing adult learners of British Sign Language and explored how each phonological parameter, sign complexity, and iconicity affected sign production over an 11-week (22-hour) instructional period. The results show that training improves articulation accuracy and that…

Hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) and spastic diplegia (SD) patients share a strong clinical resemblance. Thus, HSP patients are frequently misdiagnosed with a mild form of SD. Clinical gait analysis (CGA) has been highlighted as a possible tool to support the differential diagnosis of HSP and SD. Previous analysis has focused on the lower-body…