Effects of strategy use on children's motor performance in a continuous timing task

The purposes of this study were to associate age-related performance deficits in children with the use of recall strategies and to determine whether children who performed poorly in cycling would benefit from learning a recall strategy. In Experiment 1, 18 younger children (ages 5-7years) and 18 older children (ages 8-10 years) were asked to recall selected pedaling cadences. The majority of the older children used strategies and performed with less error than the younger children. In Experiment 2, children with a high number of errors in Experiment 1 were assigned to an experimental or a control group. The children in the experimental group were taught to use a specific recall strategy. The results showed that children who received the instruction in strategy use improved their performance.