Development of Movement Coordination in Children Applications in the Field of Ergonomics, Health Sciences and Sport

This important new book is the first text on motor learning and control to focus exclusively on the development of movement coordination in children. It is also the first book to bring together in one volume both cognitive and ecological-psychological approaches to the subject. Based on cutting-edge theory and research, the book explores how children develop coordination within three real-world settings: everyday behavior, movement disorder and sporting activity.

Co-ordination of movement plays a key role in human development and is animportant area in sport and health sciences. This book looks in detail at how children develop basic skills, such as walking and reaching for objects, and more complex skills such as throwing and catching a ball accurately or riding a bicycle. Development of Movement Co-ordination in Children is informed by five major theoretical perspectives and are explained in an introductory chapter: * neural maturation* information processing* direct perception* dynamic systems* constraint theory. The international contributions are brought together under the headings of ergonomics, health sciences and sport. Focusing on practical applications, individual chapters cover many different aspects of movement behaviour and development, ranging from children's over-estimation of their physical abilities and the links to injury proneness, to the co-ordination of kicking techniques. Both normal and abnormal development is considered. This text will be of considerable interest to students, teachers and professionals in the fields of sport science, kinesiology, physical education, ergonomics and developmental psychology.

1. Theoretical Perspectives on the Development of Movement Co-ordination in Children ergonomics 2. Motor Development and Ergonomics: Lifting Objects as a Window on Motor Control Children 3. Children's Overestimation of their Physical Abilities: Links to Injury Proneness 4. Road-Crossing Behaviour in Young Children 5. Learning to Draw and to Write: Issues of Variability and Constraints 6. Constraints in Children's Learning to use Spoon Health Sciences 7. Reflexes Reflected: Past and Present of Theory and Practice 8. Children's Co-ordination and Developmental Movement Difficulty 9. Perceptual-Motor Behaviour of Children with Down Syndrome 10. Discrete Bimanual Movement Co-ordination in Children with Hemiparetic Cerebral Palsy 11. Locomotion in Children with Cerebral Palsy: Early Predictive Factors for Ambulation and Gait Analysis Sport 12. Catching Action Development 13. degrees of Freedom, Movement Co-Ordination and Interceptive Action of Children With and Without Cerebral Palsy 14. The Development of Throwing Behaviour 15. The Co-ordination of Kicking Techniques in Children 16. Development of Locomotor Co-ordination and Control in Children

John van der Kamp, Geert Savelsbergh, Keith Davids, Simon J. Bennett