Glossary
Attention: This term means the concentrated direction of the mind. 'It refers to engagement in the perceptual, cognitive and motor activities associated with performing skills.' (Magill, 1998: 102)
Closed Motor Skill: This is the body co-ordinations that occurs when a skill is performed in a stable or predictable environment.
Continuous Motor Skills: Swimming is an example of a continuous motor skill as it requires the individual to repeatedly use the same movements.
Coordination: This refers to a person's organization of the muscles of the body so that the goal of the skill being performed can be accomplished. The more coordination a person has, the more likely they are able to achieve a complex action. (Magill, 1998:12)
Discrete Motor Skills: These skills have a definite beginning and end. Discrete skills include turning on the kettle, threading a needle etc.
Fine Motor Skills: These skills are the binary opposite of gross motor skills; they require greater control of the small muscles and greater precision. Handwriting, typing, drawing etc.
Gross Motor Skills: These involve the use of large and numerous muscles and do not require as much movement precision as fine motor skills do. Included in this category are actions such as walking, jumping and throwing.
Manipulation: The movement of the hands
Motor Behavior: An area of study directed towards the principles of human skilled movement generated at a behavioral level of analyses. (Schmidt, 1999:416)
Motor Control: The study of the neurophysiological factors that affect human movement.
Motor Development: The field in which researchers deal with the changes in motor behavior occurring as a result of growth, maturation and experience.
Motor Learning: The learning process that is concerned with the continual process of extending initial concepts of movement.
Open Motor Skill: This is the opposite to a closed motor skill; it occurs when a skill is performed in a non-stable environment, where the object or context changes during the performance of the skill. An example is driving a car.
Performance: The action that occurs after the learner's translation of the purpose and ideas and involves carrying out the specific skill.
Proximodistal Rule: The general rule that the development of movement ability moves from the points closest to the center of the body to the extreme points, e.g. from the body's core to the fingers.
Serial Motor Skills: When a few discrete motor skills are put together in a series or sequence, a serial motor skill occurs, e.g. playing the piano uses serial motor skills as the pianist needs to strike specific keys for a certain period of time in a particular order.