Pamela S. Haibach

Gross motor skill performance in children with and without visual impairments—Research to practice

The aim of this study was to provide an empirical basis for teaching gross motor skills in children with visual impairments. For this purpose, gross motor skill performance of 23, 6-12 year old, boys and girls who are blind (ICD-10 H54.0) and 28 sighted controls with comparable age and gender characteristics was compared on six locomotor and six object control tasks using the Test of Gross Motor Development-Second Edition. Results indicate that children who are blind perform significantly (p<.05) worse in all assessed locomotor and object control skills, whereby running, leaping, kicking and catching are the most affected skills, and corresponding differences are related to most running, leaping, kicking and catching component. Practical implications are provided.

Aging and time-to-postural stability following a visual perturbation

Background and aims: Postural stability is essential to the performance of most daily activities and is necessary to lead an independent lifestyle. Most functional assessments of balance have only evaluated spatial properties of posture, however, assessments should also evaluate balance in the temporal domain. Both domains provide crucial information to an individual’s postural stability. The following study examines time to regain stability and the magnitude of postural motion following a virtual perturbation. Methods: To examine the temporal limitations imposed by age (n=45),3 adult age groups were tested, young (18–19 yr), young old (60–69 yr), and old adults (70–79 yr). Participants were placed into a virtual room appearing as if the visual surround moved in a discrete antero-posterior motion. A force platform was used to assess postural motion across 4 visual perturbation conditions, 9 and 18 cm and 0.3 and 0.6 Hz. Results: Young adults exhibited significantly less postural motion than both of the older age groups and required the least amount of time to regain postural stability following the discrete visual perturbation, while the old adults required the greatest amount of time. Conclusions: These findings indicate that even small visual perturbations induce strong temporal limitations which are magnified by advancing age. Furthermore, the postural saturation (reduction in postural motion) that is typically found in young adults with increasing movement magnitude was not found in either of the older adult groups. Older adults are at a higher risk of losing balance during this period of time to reacquire postural stability which appears to be unaffected by elevated visual motion.

Aging-related temporal constraints to stability and instability in postural control

In this study, we review the evidence that older adults tend to have both a shorter time to lose stability in the maintenance of standing posture and the functionally related but inverse problem of needing more time to reacquire stability in transitioning to a postural state. These age-related time limitations to processes of stability are hypothesized to enhance the probability of falling with aging and the problems that can occur in the transition between activities, such as sitting to standing and standing to walking. The potential role of fitness and health variables in mediating the temporal constraints on the acquisition and loss of postural stability in aging is discussed.

The impact of visual impairment on gross motor skill performance

ed/indexed in: Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport is an SCI (Science Citation Information) and SSCI (Social Science Citation Information) journal. It is also abstracted/indexed in Biological Abstracts, CurrentREFERENCES The VERBTM Summer Scorecard (VSS) program was designed with the purpose of promoting physical activity among ‘tweens’ (8-13 year olds). A unique aspect of the VSS program is the scorecard which serves multiple purposes. The scorecard primarily serves as a behavioral reinforcer for physical activity. The scorecard also tracks physical activity for each participant. A community-based prevention marketing (CBPM) approach was taken to adapt the VSS to meet the needs of a rural, diverse population in the southeastern United States. Formative research was conducted with the target audience. Focus group interviews were conducted with parents and their children. Content analysis showed significant changes were needed for program. Previous versions of the Scorecard did not test well with the target audience, who suggested the use of smaller Scorecards and fobs as a secondary reinforcer. These changes offer many potential benefits to participation reinforcement and physical activity participation tracking. Figure 2. Scorecard from Southeast Georgia