Acquisition of a complex basketball-dribbling task in school children as a function of bilateral practice order

The purpose of this study was to investigate order-of-practice effects for the acquisition of a complex basketball skill in a bilateral transfer paradigm. The task required participants to dribble as fast as possible in slalom-like movements across six javelins and return to the initial position. Fifty-two right-handed school children (M age = 11.7years) practiced this skill in eight sessions over 4 weeks under one of two training schedules: (a) with the dominant hand, before changing to their nondominant hand (D-ND group), or (b) with the nondominant hand, before changing to the dominant hand (ND-D group). All tests were conducted with the right hand or the left hand only, and a transfer test was given with both hands alternating. The results of a retention test yielded significantly larger learning gains for the ND-D group as compared to the D-ND group. It is interesting that this performance advantage was independent of the respective hand tested. The same pattern of result was found in the transfer test, with significantly shorter movement times for the ND-D group with both hands alternating. Such order-of-practice effects for the acquisition of complex skills can be explained with hemispheric brain asymmetries for the processing of specific task requirements.