Chapter 2: Motor Learning and Skill Acquisition

For the Instructor Guide and Worksheet Key please contact user services at userservices@mheducation.com

OUTLINE

Objectives:

The student will appropriately:

1. Identify task-oriented training principles.

2. Identify motor learning and skill acquisition principles and apply them to a motor task, as the teacher.

3. Progress and digress functional tasks, applying guidelines of treatment progression.

4. Observe, analyze, and classify complex motor tasks based on the taxonomy of the task, and draw comparisons between various types of tasks.

5. Demonstrate understanding of the roles of the individual, environment, and task on maximizing learning of a motor skill.

Activity 1. Review of Task-Oriented Training and Motor Learning Principles

Review of task-oriented training, motor learning terms, type of skill and environment, and methods of instruction through demonstration of a motor skill (putting on a gait belt).

Activity 2. Teach Novel Motor Skills

Teach and perform motor activities in groups of three, using the tools available. For each activity, the students rotate the roles of teacher, learner, and observer. The students recognize, practice, and apply concepts of focus.

Activity 3. Teach a Client a Motor Task With Dual-Task Demands (Integration of Previously Learned Tasks)

• Teach a gait pattern progression, while also guarding the client (minimal assistance) and pulling a wheelchair behind him/her.

• Practice and provide feedback while training a client to walk with a standard walker, partial weight bearing.

• Practice and provide feedback while training wheelchair setup for a client to prepare for a safe transfer.

WORKSHEET

Activity 1. Review of Task-Oriented Training and Motor Learning Principles

Task-oriented training includes the concepts that intervention tasks need to be specific, repetitive, and should be practiced as tasks that are meaningful to the client.

Observe two classmates, one skilled and one a novice in putting on a gait belt, while each places a gait belt on another classmate. Describe your observations in each of these areas.

Type of Skill and Environment

• Discrete task

• Serial task

• Continuous task

• Closed environment

• Open environment

Movement Analysis of Putting on a Gait Belt

Describe and compare the movements of the skilled and novice performance.

• Activity.

• Movement strategy.

• Body structure and function.

Observe each student from above teaching a "family member"–how to put on a gait belt and fill in the following information regarding your observations.

Methods of Instruction

• Demonstration

• Verbal instruction

• Written instruction

• Confirm understanding of the learner by asking for the next step or other questions

• Return demonstration

Practice and Feedback Parameters With Consecutive Trials

Practice