Effect of low intensity exercise on physical and cognitive health in older adults: a systematic review

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Development Of A Mobile App To Promote Fall Prevention Exercises For Older Adults By Physiotherapists In Hong Kong

Poster Display Session: Older people (PO-35-Sat1): no. SI-PO-13-21-Sa

Choosing an appropriate physical exercise to reduce stereotypic behavior in children with autism spectrum disorders : a non-randomized crossover study

Considerable evidence has shown that physical exercise could be an effective treatment in reducing stereotypical autism spectrum disorder (ASD) behaviors in children. The present study seeks to examine the underlying mechanism by considering the theoretical operant nature of stereotypy. Children with ASD (n = 30) who exhibited hand-flapping and body-rocking stereotypies were asked to participate in both control (story-time) and experimental (ball-tapping-exercise intervention) conditions. The experimental condition comprised 15 min of ball tapping during which the children were asked to tap a plastic ball as many times as they could. Results indicated that hand-flapping stereotypy was significantly reduced but body-rocking stereotypy following the ball-tapping-exercise intervention was not. These results not only confirm the positive impact of exercise intervention on stereotypic behavior as shown in many previous studies, but further suggest that physical exercise should be matched with the biomechanics of stereotypy to produce a desirable behavioral benefit.School of Nursing2017-2018 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journal201809 bcr

Effects of different motor learning instructions on motor skill acquisition: a pilot study of rope skipping training for children

P2: Poster Session 2Research in motor learning suggests that provision of analogy instructions can induce stable motor performance in difficult situations, such as those that involve psychological stress or secondary tasks (e.g., Liao & Masters, 2001; Poolton, Masters, & Maxwell, 2006, 2007). Limited research has been conducted to test this proposition in children. The purpose of this pilot study was to explore the use of an analogy-assisted instruction protocol compared to explicit instructions on children’s rope skipping training. A group of four experienced physical education teachers were invited for a focus group interview to (a) design explicit and analogy-assisted instruction protocols that best describe the rope skipping skill, and (b) identify key assessment criteria to evaluate performance outcomes. Twelve children (5 boys and 7 girls) 5 to 6 years of age were recruited and were randomly assigned to one of the two instruction protocols for 3 training sessions. Results revealed that children in the analogy-assisted instruction group gained significant improvements earlier than those in the explicit instruction group, indicating analogy-assisted instruction may be more effective for promoting early improvement in performance. Moreover, a transfer test with a concurrent secondary cognitive task (counting backward in 2’s) further indicated that children in the analogy-assisted instruction group performed more effectively with a higher number of successful jumps, while those from the explicit instruction group displayed decrements in performance. However, both groups showed no significant difference in movement form. These results suggest that analogy-assisted instructions may be used to aid children when acquiring complex motor skills, with potential benefits related to reduced cognitive processing requirements (effective dual-task performance). The findings provide the basis for further research that will examine the effectiveness of analogy-assisted instruction for complex motor skills in children

Analogy instruction and speech performance under psychological stress

To examine the efficacy of explicit and implicit forms of instruction for speech motor performance under conditions of psychological stress. In experiment 1, 20 participants were asked to deliver a formal presentation to validate the modified Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). In experiment 2, 40 participants were instructed explicitly by verbal explanation or implicitly by analogy to speak with minimum pitch variation and were subjected to psychological stress using the modified TSST. Acoustic correlates of pitch height (mean fundamental frequency) and pitch variation (standard deviation of fundamental frequency) significantly increased in experiment 1 when participants delivered a speech under modified TSST condition. In experiment 2, explicitly instructed participants were unable to maintain minimum pitch variation under psychological pressure caused by the modified TSST, whereas analogy-instructed participants maintained minimal pitch variation. The findings are consistent with existing evidence that analogy instructions may result in characteristics of implicit motor learning, such as greater stability of performance under pressure. Analogy instructions may therefore benefit speech motor performance and might provide a useful clinical tool for treatment of speech-disordered populations