Effectiveness of a home-based early cognitive-motor intervention provided in daycare, home care, and foster care settings: Changes in motor development and context affordances.

BACKGROUND: Appropriate opportunities within the context are crucial to affect the motor trajectory positively. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effectiveness of professional-parental/caregivers' early motor-cognitive intervention on infants' motor development in Daycare (DC), Home Care (HC), and Foster Care (FC). Secondary objectives were to examine if parents and caregivers modified the context to meet the infants' needs and if making modifications was positively associated with infants' development. METHODS: Participants were 176 infants (DC = 48; HC = 58, FC = 70). Infants' were randomly assigned to intervention (IG) or comparison (CG) groups within each context. The Alberta Infant Motor Scale and Affordances in the Daycare and Home Environment for Motor Development were used. A cognitive-motor intervention was provided for infants in the intervention groups; and, a home-based support protocol for all caregivers and parents. RESULTS: IGs showed higher motor scores at post-test than CGs (p values from 0.018 to 0.026) and positive changes were observed from the pre-to-post intervention for all IGs (p ≤ .0001), and for two CGs (DC p ≤ .0001; HC p = .028). Maternal daily care and home opportunities improved for all infants. CONCLUSIONS: Parents/caregivers' protocol combined with the cognitive-motor intervention lead to better motor outcomes and changes in the context for the IGs. Only the parent/caregivers' protocol was not strong to improve CGs motor outcomes, although changes in context were found. Intensive intervention is need for infants living in vulnerability.

Estratégias de ensino nas aulas de dança: demonstração, dicas verbais e imagem mental / Teaching strategies in dance classes: modeling, verbal cues and mental imagery

Estratégias de ensino, como demonstração, dicas verbais e imagem mental, têm sido consideradas importantes mediadores no processo de ensino-aprendizagem. Esta revisão tem o objetivo de revisitar os estudos clássicos de aprendizagem motora, bem como a literatura atual com o foco na aprendizagem e no uso das estratégias de ensino na dança. O objetivo da revisão é discutir formas práticas de implementar o uso sistemático dessas estratégias no ensino da dança. Esta revisão conclui com reflexões críticas a respeito de como a teoria pode ser aplicada nas práticas cotidianas de um professor de dança.

Teaching strategies such as modeling, verbal cues and mental imagery have been regarded as important mediators of the learning process. This review has the goal of revisiting the classical studies of motor learning as well as current literature focusing on learning and the use of these strategies in dancing. The goal of the review is to focus on practical ways to implement the use of these strategies systematically in dance instruction. This review concludes with critical insights on how this theoretical framework can be applied in everyday practices of dance teachers.