Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.
Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
A CORRELATION BETWEEN GROSS MOTOR DEVELOPMENT AND ACADEMIC SUCCESS FOR CHILDREN EXHIBITING GROSS MOTOR DEFICIENCIES UPON ENTERING SCHOOL
Abstract
The relationship between gross motor development and academic success for those children exhibiting gross motor deficiencies upon entering a formal school setting was investigated in this study. Through a review of selected literature, it was revealed that there is a strong relationship between gross motor development and academic success. The review of perceptual-motor theory and its proponents revealed that motor development pertains to muscular movement, that learned motor skills are acquired by a process called motor learning, and that the primary characteristic of motor learning is movement. The selected theorists appeared to agree that motor learning is a part of a person's total development which occurs in a sequential manner encompassing each one of the sensory modalities. Perceptual abilities are the underlying foundations for learning academic tasks at the higher levels of intellectual functioning. These same theorists concluded that early identification and intervention programs are most successful among preschool and kindergarten children. These programs should be initiated in the classroom utilizing a spiralized and sequentialized curriculum of gross motor training. The research population consisted of students in the kindergarten and primary one unit of the educable mentally handicapped program. These classes are housed in the Carlyle C. Ring School, Jamestown, New York. C. C. Ring School is the largest of the eight elementary schools in the Jamestown Public School System with a total student population of 607 students. The students selected as the research population were chosen upon their entrance into the formal school setting. The ten students selected for the educable mentally handicapped program were initially placed in this particular classroom after extensive assessments indicated that there were existing perceptual deficiencies in several modalities. The kindergarten children who exhibited perceptual deficiencies were detected through the administration of the writer's Gross Motor Activity Scale and the Metropolitan Readiness Tests. Twenty-four of the enrolled seventy-two children were selected to participate in the gross motor program at the kindergarten level. A curriculum which is spiralized and sequentialized was compiled by the writer. This curriculum was implemented at the kindergarten level by two volunteers enrolled in the Human Services Department of Jamestown Community College, who intend to pursue a teaching career. They worked cooperatively under the supervision of the writer and the two kindergarten teachers. The same curriculum was utilized with the educable mentally handicapped children in a class taught by the writer. The Gross Motor Training Intervention Program was included in the curriculum for thirty weeks, in both educational settings. A weekly Progress Chart was used as an evaluation tool. At the end of the thirty-week session, both groups were given the Gross Motor Activity Scale and the Metropolitan Readiness Tests as post-tests. The results were analyzed and tabulated for both groups. The results of the post-tests of both groups indicated academic growth as well as the acquisition of skills which are basic to favorable learning. Each group exhibited improvement in the following areas: self-concept; self-control; social maturity; listening to and following direction; favorable work habits; cooperative adult and peer interaction; find motor coordination; gross motor coordination; increased attention span; and a favorable attitude toward the "learning climate." The study revealed that those children with motor difficulties exhibited marked improvement in coordination, integration, and transfer of learning. A recommendation of this study is to continue future programs such as this to help promote academic success for children who exhibit a "developmental lag" in the perceptual-motor system.
Subject Area
Special education
Recommended Citation
BELLITTO, FRANCES CAROL, "A CORRELATION BETWEEN GROSS MOTOR DEVELOPMENT AND ACADEMIC SUCCESS FOR CHILDREN EXHIBITING GROSS MOTOR DEFICIENCIES UPON ENTERING SCHOOL" (1981). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8122589.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8122589