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How do paediatric physical therapists teach motor skills to children with Developmental Coordination Disorder? An interview study
No full textBackground
When teaching motor skills, paediatric physical therapists (PPTs) use various motor learning strategies (MLSs), adapting these to suit the individual child and the task being practised. Knowledge about the clinical decision-making process of PPTs in choosing and adapting MLSs when treating children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is currently lacking. Therefore, this qualitative study aimed to explore PPTs’ use of MLSs when teaching motor skills to children with DCD.
Methods
Semi-structured individual and group interviews were conducted with PPTs with a wide range of experience in treating children with DCD. A conventional content analysis approach was used where all transcripts were open-coded by two reviewers independently. Categories and themes were discussed within the research group. Data were collected until saturation was reached.
Results
Twenty-six PPTs (median age: 49 years; range: 26–66) participated in 12 individual interviews and two focus-group interviews. Six themes were identified: (1) PPTs treated children in a tailor-made way; (2) PPTs’ teaching style was either more indirect or direct; (3) PPTs used various strategies to improve children’s motivation; (4) PPTs had reached the optimal level of practice when children were challenged; (5) PPTs gave special attention to automatization and transfer during treatment; and (6) PPTs considered task complexity when choosing MLSs, which appeared determined by task constraints, environmental demands, child and therapist characteristics.
Conclusion
PPTs’ clinical decision-making processes in choosing MLSs appeared strongly influenced by therapist characteristics like knowledge and experience, resulting in large variation in the use of MLSs and teaching styles to enhance motivation, automatization, and transfer. This study indicates the importance of the level of education on using MLSs to teach children motor skills, and clinical decision-making. Future research should focus on implementing this knowledge into daily practice.We are grateful to the PPTs who participated in this study. We also would like to thank the master’s students of the Master’s in Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy of Hasselt University (Belgium), and of the Master’s in Paediatric Physical Therapy of Avans+ (the Netherlands) for participating in conducting the interviews and analysing the data. Furthermore, we acknowledge Les Hearn ([email protected]) for proofreading and editing this article
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Disrupting working memory to reduce verbal-analytical engagement in motor performance: Squeezing in a tiresome new approach to implicit motor learning!
Full text linkImplicit motor learning paradigms aim to minimise verbal-analytical engagement during motor performance. Some do this by suppressing working memory activity during practice. This reduces the ability of the learner to use, manipulate and store task-related information via mental processes, such as hypothesis testing. Implicit motor learning paradigms that suppress working memory indirectly are not always effective, because individual differences, such as motivation, can override their efficiency. The aim of this thesis was to investigate whether two more direct methods, cognitive fatigue and hand contractions, are viable tools with which to suppress working memory activity during motor practice, and whether they cause reduced verbal-analytical engagement in motor performance.
Chapter 2 investigated whether a computer-based cognitive fatigue task suppressed working memory activity during a golf putting task. Behavioural measures of verbal-analytical engagement were employed to test whether the cognitive fatigue task reduced hypothesis testing during the subsequent golf putting task. Results revealed that the computer-based cognitive fatigue task promoted cognitive fatigue, but was not sufficient to cause reduced hypothesis testing compared to a non-fatigue group.
In Chapter 3, a cognitive fatigue task with greater emphasis on motor control was therefore designed. It was first established whether the task caused cognitive fatigue and if working memory functions were disrupted. Subsequently, it was established whether the cognitive fatigue task reduced hypothesis testing during performance of a novel shuffleboard task, using behavioural measures, including self-report and assessment of technique changes. Additionally, verbal-analytical engagement in motor planning was gauged, using electroencephalography (EEG) to assess alpha power over the left temporal verbal-analytical (T7) site plus connectivity between the T7 and Fz (motor planning mid-frontal) sites. The results revealed that the motor-specific cognitive fatigue manipulation caused increased, rather than decreased, verbal-analytical engagement in motor performance, compared to a no fatigue control condition.
Chapter 4 examined whether hand contraction protocols influenced cognitive processes during motor performance, by using EEG to gauge verbal-analytical engagement during motor planning (i.e., T7-Fz connectivity) following a left-hand, right-hand or no hand-contraction protocol. The findings revealed that left-hand contractions, which are thought to activate the less verbal right hemisphere and deactivate the more verbal left hemisphere, caused reduced verbal-analytical engagement in motor planning, compared to the other protocols. Furthermore, right-hand contractions caused higher levels of verbal-analytical engagement in motor planning. Consequently, Chapter 5 investigated whether left-hand contractions promoted implicit motor learning. Participants practiced a motor task following regular bouts of left-hand contractions, right-hand contractions or no hand-contractions. Behavioral measures were used to gauge the extent to which verbal-analytical engagement was curtailed or encouraged. The results revealed no evidence that left-hand contractions promoted implicit motor learning, and both left-hand and right-hand contractions caused worse performance than no hand-contractions during a post-practice test phase.
Working memory performance was disrupted by both the cognitive fatigue and hand contraction protocols; however, predicted decrements in verbal-analytical engagement did not occur, and implicit motor learning was not promoted. The findings of this thesis reveal the complexity of the interrelationships between working memory, verbal-analytical processes and brain activity during motor learning. Future directions for research are considered
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Factors that influence motor performance: Colour, inhibition and conscious processing
Full text linkThis thesis investigates potential psychological mechanisms that influence motor performance in sport, including colour, inhibition function, and propensity for conscious control of movement. A question was raised about whether individuals with poor inhibition function would be more likely to have a high propensity for conscious control (i.e., reinvestment) because they are less able to inhibit conscious control. However, Experiment 1 (Chapter 2) and Experiment 2 (Chapter 3) revealed a positive association between inhibition function (indexed by the Go/NoGo task) and propensity for conscious control of movement (assessed by the Movement Specific Reinvestment Scale, MSRS).
Experiment 3 (Chapter 4) examined the effect of colour on inhibition function during a basketball-specific Go/NoGo task. Worse inhibition performance was evident when participants viewed an opponent in a green uniform compared to a red and a grey uniform, possibly because green conveys the meaning to ‘go’ (e.g., at traffic lights). Archival data of professional netball games was analysed to examine whether teams in green uniforms made more intercepts because green lowers an opponent’s ability to inhibit an ill-chosen pass. Findings revealed higher mean intercepts for teams wearing green uniforms than for teams wearing red and other-coloured uniforms.
Experiment 4 (Chapter 5) examined whether the effect of uniform colour may be due to differences in an opponent’s perception of size. A side-by-side comparison task revealed that goalkeepers in a red and a blue uniform were perceived as larger than goalkeepers in a green uniform, possibly because red and blue colours convey the meaning of dominance and threat in a football context (e.g., the most successful teams, like Manchester United and Chelsea, wear red and blue colours). Experiment 5 (Chapter 6) examined whether viewing a red and a blue spectator background would elicit avoidance motivation during football penalty-kicks, because they conveyed the meaning of dominance and threat. Professional football players displayed avoidance motivation (i.e., choosing the easier option/ kicking towards the larger side of the goal) when viewing a red and a blue spectator background compared to other-coloured backgrounds. Based on Experiments 4 and 5, it was argued that viewing a red and a blue spectator background elicited avoidance motivation because red and blue convey the meaning of dominance and threat in football.
In Experiment 6 (Chapter 7), retrospective analysis of professional football games was conducted to examine whether avoidance motivation would also be evident when facing a hostile crowd (a threatening stimulus). Consistently, penalty-kickers chose the easier option/ kicked to the larger side of the goal (i.e., avoidance motivation) more often when facing a hostile crowd rather than a supportive crowd. It was suggested that viewing a threatening stimulus (1) increases arousal levels, which exacerbates the negative emotions that are experienced by kickers during penalty-kicks in real-life or (2) viewing a threatening stimulus aids visual discrimination of available space, allowing kickers to identify and kick towards the larger side more often.
The findings of this thesis revealed a positive association between inhibition function and movement specific reinvestment propensity, which suggests that ability to inhibit inappropriate motor responses may be a function of inter-personal differences in the propensity for conscious control of movements. Support was found for the effect of colour in sporting contexts. Overall, the findings suggest that the colour effect only occurs if the colour-meaning association reaches an adequate salience threshold within a specific context. In addition, it was argued that while context influences emotional valence (positive, negative emotions), colour influences arousal, which exacerbates the level of negative emotion. An attempt is made to integrate the findings from the thesis with previous evidence to begin development of a theoretical framework for the effects of colour on human performance
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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