Gross Motor Coincidence Timing by Children with Learning Difficulties and Children Matched on Mean Chronological and Mental Age

Abstract

This study examines the learning by children with learning difficulties of a gross motor coincidence timing task, compared with that by children of average intelligence of an equivalent chronological age and mental age. The gross motor coincidence timing response was seen as representative of a particular task category. Using a task classification scheme based on the mobility or otherwise of the environment, the total body and the body parts, the two movement responses required of the children were seen as characteristic of the “environment in motion, total body in motion, body parts stationary” class, the difference between the two lying in their ballistic or controlled nature. The findings suggest that, as a group, the children with learning difficulties perform at a level lower than either of the matched groups. Differences in the nature of the errors for the two response patterns were particularly evident for the group of children with learning difficulties.