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Marianne Frosting has a test based system (Gearheart, 1973). The classroom
teacher may administer her test in groups. She has five subtests which measure
various skills which she states are necessary to success in academics. She has a
series of training exercises in both gross and fine motor skills. Her test is
limited to visual-perceptual skills, and the program is basically a
visual-perception program. Musk Moisten (Hellmuth, 1968) involves a theoretical
framework in which a child can be led in an orderly manner from situations in
which he simply responds to commands, to situations in which he actively engages
in problem solving and can see for himself the quality of his decisions through
movement. Following Mosston's general guidelines, the Visual Motor Center of
Montreal has developed a motor learning program for elementary children using an
intrasensory approach.
The program involves the use of large forms such as a climbing wall, a
people-size barrel, and various sized balls attached to strings hanging from the
ceiling. The forms are designed to improve the child's physical coordination
while a multi-directional series of tasks serves to increase the child's mental
capacities in coordination with his motor patterns. The series consists of tasks
organized into five areas: 1. Body Image 2. Motor Planning 3. Laterality 4.
Balance 5. Visualization Another perceptual-motor approach is that put forth by
Newell Kephart (1969). He illustrates his emphasis in his theory which is
organized into three stages of learning development – “practical, subjective,
and objective all stages based upon four motor generalizations; posture and
maintenance of balance, contact, locomotor, and receipt and propulsion. The
practical stage is the early stage going back to infancy and lays the foundation
for future learning and the theory that all behavior is basically motor. Many
specific motor skills, such as walking, may be taught with ease, but the
teaching of Movement patterns presents a more difficult task. Each child should
have motor awareness and a concept of body schema or body image.
Once the child has established his body image, he is able to develop other
motor skills such as directionality. The subjective stage is the second stage of
learning development or the perceptual-motor stage. This stage is based upon
motor contact and locomotion. Reach, grasp, and release enable the child to
manipulate and explore object shapes in terms of movement and body schema.
Locomotion enables the child to explore space. The objective stage is the
perceptual stage and is reached only after the child has passed through the
other two stages. One problem in this stage faced by the child is that of
crossing the body midline as the pattern changes from outside-in to inside-out,
but does not change in shape. Kephart's manual for the classroom teacher is
divided into four major sections: 1. chalkboard training 2. sensory-motor
training 3. training ocular control 4. training form perception Under each
section many activities are suggested that will strengthen perceptual-motor
skills. For example, under chalkboard training come scribbling, finger painting,
drawing circles, and other geometric forms. Problems in children in many
classrooms are quite often perceptual-motor in nature. Therefore, remediation is
aimed at those skills. Although the perceptual-motor problems are usually
anatomical or physical in nature, a restricted classroom environment magnifies
them. Children do not have a chance for adequate practice or development in some
very basic abilities such as eye-hand coordination, form perception, and spatial
relationships. Many of the activities suggested by Kephart are already used in
many kindergartens and first grade rooms, but sometimes not to a great extent.
More practice in many of these activities would, perhaps, help more
children develop their basic motor skills. Gerald Getman (1970) emphasizes a
developmental approach to visual perception. Getman and his associates have
developed a program of visuomotor training. It is based upon the belief that
visual perception is learned and that it evolves from actions of the entire
organism. He also believes it is necessary to have good coordination of the body
parts and body systems in order to develop perception of forms and symbols. The
foundation of Getman's training program of growth and development is associated
with the first five years of life. There are six developmental areas or stages
as follows: (1) General Movement Patterns – When a child moves he learns.
Without movement, learning does not take place. Eye-hand coordination is
achieved early and sets the pattern for further learning. (2) Special Movement
Patterns - The movement patterns are extended and all parts of the body are
used. The body gets ready for further perceptual work. (3) Eye Movement Patterns
- Action is reduced and vision replaces general or special movements. The hands
are freed for more economical uses. (4) Communications or Visual Language
Patterns – This replaces action and the mastery of speech takes place. (5)
Visualization Pattern - Sometimes called visual memory, this involves the recall
of previous learning, the matching up of things already known, and the
inspection of new learnings (6) Visual Perceptual Organization – This stage of
development makes it possible for an individual to interchange body mechanisms
when interpreting the environment. Vision remains most important in
interpretation.
Another approach is that by Ray Barsch. Barsch is a man very much interested
with the world of space and movement within that space. According to him (1965),
a curriculum for children with learning disabilities can have only one
objective, namely to correct whatever impediments stand in the way of the child
taking full advantage of the offerings of the regular curriculum. The deficits
that a learning disabled child exhibits cannot, as a rule, be explained as
basically intellectual or emotional; therefore, one must consider the child as a
sensory-perceptual- motor organism. Since the usual curriculum has failed with
many of these special children, then an unusual curriculum is required.
Movigenic (Barsch 1970) is the study of the origin and development of movement
patterns leading to learning efficiency. The movement theory, based on
movigenics, is the basis for Barsch's physiologic program. This theory of
movement is based upon ten postulates encompassing the work of many theorists
and researchers. Without exception, all of the postulates deal with man as a
moving being within a spatial world. A movigenic curriculum is one in which the
child with a problem in learning receives the opportunity to explore and
experience himself in space. A brief description of an actual classroom might
give some idea of the operation of the movigenic theory. All windowpanes are
covered with black plastic sheeting (this allows for complete control of
lighting). Lines are painted on the floor to mark where children will stand for
chalkboard writing, transport routes, and other activities. A three-foot strip
of carpet on the floor provides a surface for crawling and rolling. Children go
barefooted or in stocking feet.
Activities are planned carefully, but no effort is made to follow a regular
order of activity. Equipment used includes walking and balancing rails, tracing
templates, scooter and teeterboards, plastic balls, a metronome, Cuisenaire
rods, and many other concrete materials. McCarthy and McCarthy (1970) conclude
that a movigenic approach might work well with some children and not at all with
others, depending on the cause of their inept school performance. Bryant cratty
(1969) has developed a motor learning program where teachers may work with a
classroom on a task such as shape recognition using tactile and visual
modalities. Then the teacher takes the students to a playground which is
composed of huge shapes which the children can name, play on, play in, play
around, and explore. The type of transfer that develops from this direct
intercourse with the form is something much more valuable than any picture or
lecture. This new playground concept was developed from studies made by Cratty
which demonstrated that the acquisition of gross movement patterns at times
influenced the acquisition of small movement patterns and from studies by E.
Dean l@yan that indicated that there are individuals who seem to block stimuli
presented to them kinesthetically and visually and prefer rather to move,
creating their own input. The playground itself consists of four areas including
grids, lines, squares, circles, forms, etc. An example of how the learning
playground is used is illustrated by the child who is learning his letters. He
begins by exploring the different shapes and analyzing how shapes form letters.
He later becomes familiar with the letters themselves through work on the letter
grids. Cratty's overall philosophy, which this writer believes should be a
guideline for all learning situations, is that children be exposed to a variety
of perceptual-motor activities, which are presented in the order of their
difficulty, including such areas as balance, agility, manual skill and ball
handling, and most important he believes that children should be well motivated
when they perform and not simply pushed into the intellectual competitive race
(1969).
This writer feels that basic to the above theories is that of Jean Ayres
(1972,1973) dealing with sensory-motor-integration. Much of that written above,
Ayres also discusses - but from a more neurological point of view. Her theory is
extremely believable after one has spent some time in the field applying other
perceptual-motor theories. Ayres states (1972) thatdisorders consistently
observed in learning disabled children that are suggestive of inadequate sensory
integration in the brain stem are immature postural reactions, poor extraocular
muscle control, poorly developed visual orientation to environmental space,
difficulty in the processing of sound into percepts, and the tendency toward
distractibility. It is felt by this writer that most, if not all, of the
theories being applied in L.D. classes are overlooking basic
sensory-motor-integration theory, thereby causing more luck than skill to be the
effective agent in their remedial or developmental programs in perceptual-motor
skills There are, of course, other views in this field,, but the above are
representative of the group.
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