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Updated: Jul 20, 2026
Event-related Potentials During Target-response Tasks to Study Cognitive Processes of Upper Limb Use in Children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy
Published on: January 11, 2016
Are teaching principles associated with improved motor performance in children with developmental coordination
Anuschka S Niemeijer1, Marina M Schoemaker, Bouwien C M Smits-Engelsman
1Northern Centre for Healthcare Research, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
Background And Purpose:
Physical therapists' teaching skills often are disregarded in research studies. We examined whether the use of different teaching principles during neuromotor task training was associated with treatment effects.
Subjects:
Nineteen children (mean age=7 years 5 months, range=5-10 years) who had developmental coordination disorder and who performed below the 15th percentile on the age-related Movement Assessment Battery for Children (M-ABC) and 11 physical therapists participated in the study.
Methods:
One intervention session for each child was videotaped. The frequency of the use of principles included in the motor teaching principles taxonomy (Niemeijer et al, 2003) was correlated with changes in motor performance on the M-ABC and the second edition of the Test of Gross Motor Development.
Results:
Providing clues on how to perform a task, asking children about a task, and explaining why a movement should be executed in a certain way were related to better movement performance.
Discussion And Conclusion:
Teaching principles may be associated with success in therapeutic situations.
