Goddard Blythe SA, 2011.Neuromotor maturity as an indicator of developmental readiness for education. In: Movement, Vision, Hearing – The Basis for Learning. Kulesza EM (Ed). Wydawnictwo Akademie Pedagogiki Specjalnej im Marii Grzegorzewskiej. Warsaw.
Abstract:
Two independent projects were undertaken by teachers with 64 children in schools in Northumberland and 6 children in Berkshire to investigate whether: a) retention of three primitive reflexes (indicators of neuromotor immaturity) was present in children in mainstream schools in the United Kingdom; b) there was a link between immature motor skills and lower performance in reading, writing, spelling, maths and drawing; c) retained primitive reflexes responded to a developmental movement programme (The INPP Programme for Schools) .
88.5% of children aged 7-8 years and 40% of children aged 4-6 years in the Northumberland sample had residual primitive reflexes. Higher scores on tests for retained primitive reflexes correlated with lower performance on the Draw a Person test. Children in the INPP group showed a significantly greater decrease in scores for abnormal reflexes than children who participated in a general movement programme.
Six children who followed the INPP Programme in the Berkshire sample had significant decrease in abnormal reflexes and improvements on the Salford Sentence Reading Test compared to six children who did not take part in the INPP Programme.
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