Considering the impact of physical disability on FMS development and PA participation, our second hypothesis was that implementing FMS training will have a greater impact on PA among children with disability than those without disability. Evidence-based

recommendations have highlighted that movement skills training should be based on a sound theoretical framework.17 In this study, the FMS training program was based on the errorless motor learning model,18 which constrains the environment to minimize the amount of practice errors. It has been suggested that reduction of practice errors facilitates movement performance that is stable even when doing a secondary cognitive task (i.e., dual-task demands).18 Subsequent studies also revealed advantages Selleck GDC 0068 such as stability against physiological fatigue, long-term skills retention,19 and superior movement performance.20 Besides those advantages mentioned, this approach was chosen because it is believed that CCI-779 manufacturer greater experiences of success during practice could promote heightened self-efficacy among children. This model was applied in a recent study of children without disability where overhand throwing practice was integrated into physical education (PE) lessons in a primary school.21 Task difficulty was manipulated so that learners began with an easy task that progressively increased in difficulty, thereby minimizing practice errors in the early stage.

It was shown that reduction of

errors in the initial stages of learning resulted in improved movement performance that were unaffected by cognitive dual-task demands. This suggests that children learnt motor skills without significantly relying on their cognitive resources. In a follow-up study, a similar overhand throwing practice program was integrated into the adapted PE lessons of children with intellectual disability.22 Besides NET1 the consistent findings of improved movement proficiency and stability in the presence of secondary cognitive tasks, heightened free play engagement when the skill was relevant (i.e., throwing games) was also observed. Based on these recent researches, the errorless learning approach was deemed to be an appropriate framework for FMS training of children with and without disability. It appears that this approach could accommodate learners’ variations of ability, and was thus used in this pilot study. In the first study group, children with CP were recruited from a pediatric therapy clinic (n = 24; 12 girls, 12 boys). To prevent experimental contamination, participants were allocated by group (i.e., those in the clinic at the same schedule were allocated as a group to either training or control) into either an FMS training group (CP-FMS; n = 12; mean age: 6.92 ± 3.04 years) or a control group (CP-C; n = 12; mean age: 7.98 ± 1.74 years). The children with CP were within Gross Motor Classification System (GMFCS) levels I to III.