Motor Development Relection And Comparison To Fourth Graders

Friday, Steve and I began by pairing up with a woman who was between the age of 55 and 65 (I think). There were just enough subjects for each group to evaluate one adult, so our reflections are based upon a single subject. We started out in the striking station. First, the subject was allowed to practice hitting the ball against the wall for roughly one minute and then we began the first trial. She could only do five repetitions the first time, and we had to stop her after completing a quick 25 repetitions the following trial. She exhibited form at the elementary level, facing the wall instead of turning sideways, and using primarily wrist flexion and extension to move the racquet instead of taking a full arm-swing. She did exhibit good consistency, however, using this form. For the next striking activity she said she did not need any practice. She was able to reach the maximum repetitions allowed (25) in her first trial. She exhibited mature levels of development in her eye-hand coordination for this skill, varying the height of the bounce, with little loss of control (especially compared to the fourth graders).

The throwing/catching station was next in line. I volunteered to be the throwing partner of the subject, while Steve took notes. The subject exhibited skills that rested between the elementary and the mature categories. For the tracking skill, she tossed the ball about 4 feet into the air, and sometimes got out of control, but always caught the ball (usually with two hands). She exhibited more control than about half of my fourth graders, and all of my second graders.

As we used both sized balls for the underhand toss and alternated hands as well. The subject tucked the ball into her body and had a lot of leg bend as well when catching the ball with a single hand. She exhibited above-fourth-grader skill level when throwing the ball overhand, showing great opposition. The oppostion was non-existent, however when the subject switched to her left hand. Most likely due to not throwing much with her non-dominant hand, the subject was in the lower end of the elementary category using her left hand.

The most exciting station was the “Bop-it” station where the subject had one chance to practice and then scored a 17, 21, and then 2. The first two scores were quite impressive, I thought, but there were no real norms to compare with for this station. The next activity we performed in the field house were several locomotor exercises. We asked the subject to skip, gallop, power walk and jog. One could immediately see tha

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