Motor skill acquisition in children with learning difficulties and their chronological and mental age counterparts

The physical abilities and motor performance of children with learning difficulties and children of the same chronological age and mental age is reviewed, together with information relating to their learning of motor skills. It is noted that although children with learning difficulties perform at a level lower than that of their peers, this is not consistently the case, and.it is hypothesised that the anomalies may be at least partly due to the different types of tasks employed. On the basis of this, a task classification scheme is proposed, based on the mobility or otherwise of the environment, the whole body and the body parts, and five tasks are selected as representative of categories within one scheme. For each task, a group of children with learning difficulties is matched with two groups, on chronological and mental age, and all three groups given practice at the task; the experimental design used differs according to the task. On two of the tasks, in which the environment is stationary, the whole body is stationary and only body parts are moving, the group with learning difficulties performs at a level equal to that of their chronological age matched peers, and above the group matched on mental age. On the two tasks in which the environment is moving, the whole body is stationary, but body parts are moving, the group with learning difficulties performs at a level below that of the chronological age matched group, equal to that of the group matched on mental age, and on occasions below it. On the fifth task, in which the environment and whole body are moving, and the body parts stationary, the group with learning difficulties performs consistently at a level lower than that of either the chronological or mental age matched groups. It is concluded that whilst there may be tasks which children • with learning difficulties experience problems in learning, there are other tasks with which they are able to cope well, these tasks being distinguishable at least on the basis of the temporal demands imposed by the environment and the degree of bodily involvement. Furthermore, on the tasks in which the children with learning difficulties,as a group, perform behind their chronological and mental age matched counterparts, there are certain individuals within the group who are able to perform at a level such that they would be indistinguishable from their chronological age matched peers.