Is severity of motor coordination difficulties related to co-morbidity in children at risk for developmental coordination disorder?

Aim of the study was to investigate whether 7-9 year old children with severe motor difficulties are more at risk of additional difficulties in activities in daily living, academic skills, attention and social skills than children with moderate motor difficulties. Children (N=6959) from a population based cohort, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), were divided into three groups based on their scores on the ALSPAC Coordination Test at age 7: control children (scores above 15th centile; N=5719 [82.1%]); children with moderate (between 5th and 15th centile; N=951 [13.7%]); and children with severe motor difficulties (below 5th centile N=289 [4.2%]). Children with neurological disorders or an IQ<70 were excluded. Logistic regression was used to compare children with moderate and severe motor coordination difficulties with each other and with control children regarding their risk of co-morbidity defined as significant (<10th centile) difficulties with activities of daily living (ADL); academic skills (reading, spelling and handwriting); attention; social skills (social cognition and nonverbal skills). Children with severe motor difficulties demonstrated a higher risk of difficulties in ADL, handwriting, attention, reading, and social cognition than children with moderate motor difficulties, who in turn had a higher risk of difficulties than control children in five out of seven domains. Screening and intervention of co-morbid problems is recommended for children with both moderate and severe motor difficulties

Design and non-design labs: Does transfer occur

Abstract. This paper is the second in the series of three describing a controlled study &quot;Transfer of scientific abilities&quot;. The study was conducted in a large-enrollment introductory physics course taught via Investigative Science Learning Environment. Its goal was to fmd whether designing their own experiments in labs affects students&apos; approaches to experimental problem solving in new areas of physics and in biology, and their learning of physics concepts. This paper reports on the part of the study that assesses student work while solving an experimental problem in a physics content area not studied in class. For a quantitative evaluation of students&apos; abilities, we used scientific abilities rubrics. We studied the students&apos; lab reports and answers to non-traditional exam problems related to the lab. We evaluated their performance and compared it with the performance of a control group that had the same course but enrolled in nondesign labs instead of design labs. The project was supported by NSF grant DRL 0241078

Physics: a general introduction

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Investigative Science Learning Environment: Using the processes of science and cognitive strategies to learn physics

This paper, presented at the 2001 Physics Education Research Conference, asks if reading fifteen textbook chapters, listening to one lecturer, doing prescribed labs, answering someone else's questions, and solving well-defined problems resemble in any way a five-month schedule of activities for a person in a science related field in the 21st century workplace. Several recent studies concerning the knowledge and skills needed in the workplace indicate that there is a serious mismatch between traditional physics instruction and the needs of the workplace. In this study, the authors describe briefly an Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) introductory physics learning system that attempts to replicate more closely the processes used in the real world of science and engineering. The authors hope that ISLE students' learning better meets the needs of the workplace. The paper describes the method, including goals of the instruction, techniques used to assess the achievement of these goals and preliminary results of this assessment from courses taught by different instructors

An Overview of Recent Research on Multiple Representations.

In this paper we focus on some of the recent findings of the physics education research community in the area of multiple representations. The overlying trend with the research is how multiple representations help students learn concepts and skills and assist them in problem solving. Two trends developed from the latter are: how students use multiple representations when solving problems and how different representational formats affect student performance in problem solving. We show how our work relates to these trends and provide the reader with an overall synopsis of the findings related to the advantages and disadvantages of multiple representations for learning physics

Case Study: Students’ Use of Multiple Representations in Problem Solving.

Being able to represent physics problems and concepts in multiple ways for qualitative reasoning and problem solving is a scientific ability we want our students to develop. These representations can include but are not limited to words, diagrams, equations, graphs, and sketches. Physics education literature indicates that using multiple representations is beneficial for student understanding of physics ideas and for problem solving [1]. To find out why and how students use different representations for problem solving, we conducted a case study of six students during the second semester of a two-semester introductory physics course. These students varied both in their use of representations and in their physics background. This case study helps us understand how students’ use or lack of use of representations relates to their ability to solve problems

Study guide and workbook for physics: a general introduction

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