Untitled

• Motor skills are tasks that require voluntary control over movements of the joints and body segments to achieve a goal eg riding a bicycle, walking, surfing, jumping, running, and weightlifting
• Motor Control is defined as the process of initiating, directing, and grading purposeful voluntary movement[3].
• Reflex Theory

  Sherrington 1906 Movement is controlled by stimulus-response. Reflexes are the basis for movement - Reflexes are combined into actions that create behaviour. Use sensory input to control motor output Stimulate good reflexes Inhibit undesirable (primitive) reflexes Rely heavily on Feedback
• Dynamical Systems Theory-

  • Movement emerges to control degrees of freedom. 
  • Patterns of movements self-organise within the characteristics of environmental conditions and the existing body systems of the individual. 
• Velocity- important for dynamics of movement.
• Hierarchical Theories

  Cortical centers control movement in a top-down manner throughout the nervous system
• Closed-loop Mode: Sensory feedback is needed and used to control the movement.
• Motor Program Theory

  Adaptive, exible motor programs (MPs) and generalised motor programs (GMPs) exist to control actions that have common characteristics.
• Higher-level Motor Programs - Store rules for generating movements.
• Abnormal Movement - Not just reflexive, also including abnormalities in central pattern generators or higher level motor programs.
• Ecological Theories

  The person, the task, and the environment interact to influence motor behaviour and learning. The interaction of the person with any given environment provides perceptual information used to control movement.
• Systems Model

  Multiple body systems overlap to activate synergies for the production of movements that are organised around functional goals.
• Motor Learning

  "The process of acquiring a skill by which the learner, through practice and assimilation, refines and makes automatic the desired movement"[2].
• Motor learning is a complex process occurring in the brain in response to practice or experience of a certain skill resulting in changes in the central nervous system
• Closed Loop - Sensory feedback is used for the ongoing production of skilled movement
• Perceptual Trace - Built up over a period of practice & is the reference of correctness.
• Memory Trace - Initiation of movement
• Schmidt's Schema Theory

  Schmidt 1975 Open Loop Schema - Abstract memory representation for events → RULE
• Generalised Motor Program - Rules that allow for the generation of novel movements
• Rapid, ballistic movements = recall memory with motor programs and parameters to carry out movement without peripheral feedback
• Variability of Practice → Improve Motor Learning
• Optimal Learning → Task practiced under many different conditions
• Ecological Theory

  Newell 1991

  Based on Systems & Ecological Motor Control Theories
• Motor Learning = Increases coordination between perception and action through task & environmental constraints.
• Perceptual-motor workspace - Identifies movements and perceptual cues most relevant to performance of task
• Cognitive Movements are slow, inconsistent and inefficient. Considerable cognitive activity is required. Attention to understand what must move to produce a specific result. Large parts of the movement are controlled consciously
• Associative Movements are more fluid, reliable and efficient Less cognitive activity is required Some parts of the movements are controlled consciously, some automatically.
• Autonomous Movements are accurate, consistent and efficient. Little or no cognitive activity is required. Movement is largely controlled automatically Attention can be focused on tactical choices
• degrees of freedom (the number of independent movements needed to complete an action, as a central component of learning a new motor skill).
• Initial individual simplifies movements by reducing the degrees of freedom
• Advanced individual gains a few degrees of freedom, which permits movement in more of the articulations involved in the task
• Expert possesses all the degrees of freedom to carry out the task in an effective and coordinated manner.
• First Stage Understanding the purpose of the task developing movement strategies appropriate for completing the task interpreting environmental information that is relevant to organising movement.
• Second stage

  fixation or diversification redefining movement adapting movement to change in task and in setting being able to perform the task consistently and efficiently
• Improvement – measuring the skill i.e. archery score, more accurately hitting a target. There should be a decrease in errors.
• Consistency – the individual is able to reliably produce the result
• Retention – Retention tests are used following a delay in practice to determine if permanent learning has occurred.
• Transfer – The ability to perform a similar movement, within a different context in which it was initially learnt is tested (transfer) i.e. changing the amount of force or surface, location
• Shumway-Cook has defined motor control as the ability to regulate mechanisms essential to movement[4
• Early Cognitive; Essential Elements were not observed or not present