Growth, Development and Motor Learning
This domain tests how AHSEC candidates distinguish growth from development, describe stages and factors, and explain how motor skills are learned and refined.
Core ideas
- Growth is quantitative and measurable (height, weight, bone size); development is qualitative and functional (maturation of systems, social-emotional change).
- Stages: infancy, early and late childhood, adolescence, adulthood. Adolescence brings a growth spurt, secondary sexual characteristics and emotional change.
- Factors affecting growth and development: heredity, nutrition, hormones, exercise, illness and socio-economic environment.
- Motor learning stages (Fitts and Posner): cognitive (understanding the task, many errors), associative (practice and refinement), autonomous (automatic, consistent).
- Feedback: intrinsic (from the performer's senses) and extrinsic (coach, video, stopwatch). Knowledge of results is outcome feedback; knowledge of performance is technique feedback.
- Practice design: whole vs part, massed vs distributed, variable practice for transfer.
Worked example
A coach teaches a basketball free throw. In the cognitive stage the learner needs a clear demonstration and short checklists. Use distributed practice (short bouts with rest) and extrinsic knowledge of performance on elbow and follow-through. As errors drop, move to variable practice under different distances and fatigue so the skill transfers to game conditions.
Traps
Do not use growth and development as synonyms. Do not say maturation is the same as learning. Do not treat more feedback as always better: too much feedback can create dependence; fade it as the learner advances.