Improving Fine Motor Skill Development to Promote Mathematical Ability

改善精细动作技能发展以提升数学能力

• 批准号: 7942065
• 负责人: David W. Grissmer
• 金额: $ 53.54万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-30 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7942065
• 关键词: Achievement; Addictive Behavior; Address; Adult; Affect; Age; Area; Attention; Behavior; Behavioral; Birth; Categories; Child; Cognitive; Communities; Complex; Control Groups; Data; Development; Diagnostic; Disadvantaged; Early treatment; Education; Educational Background; Educational Curriculum; Educational process of instructing; Effectiveness of Interventions; Elements; Empirical Research; Employment; Engineering; Ethnic group; Evaluation; Exercise; Family; Funding; Gender; Health Care Costs; Health Status; Human Resources; Imprisonment; Individual; Informal Social Control; Intervention; Learning; Link; Logistics; Longitudinal Surveys; Mathematics; Measures; Mediating; Mediation; Methods; Minority; Mothers; Motor; Motor Skills; Music; Neurosciences; Occupational Therapist; Occupations; Outcome; Parents; Pathway interactions; Policies; Population; Postdoctoral Fellow; Pregnancy in Adolescence; Psychologist; Psychology; Public Health; Reading; Research; Research Infrastructure; Research Personnel; Resources; Schools; Science; Scientific Advances and Accomplishments; Social Welfare; Structure; Student Dropouts; Students; Technology; Testing; Time; Training; Unemployment; Visuospatial; Wages; Work; addiction; base; boys; cost; cost effectiveness; design; early childhood; effectiveness measure; executive function; first grade; girls; high school; improved; kindergarten; mathematical ability; psychologic; public health relevance; racial and ethnic; relating to nervous system; research study; scale up; skills; social; stem; success; teacher; theories; web site

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application addresses Broad Challenge Area (12) Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education and specific challenge area 12-OD-101, Efficacy of educational approaches toward promoting STEM competencies. The title of the proposal is Improving Fine Motor Skill Development to Promote Mathematical Ability. Historically, motor and cognitive development have been considered as relatively independently developing skills, but recent evidence suggests that they are inextricably intertwined. Recent neuroscience and empirical research suggests that lagging fine motor skills in kindergarten and first grade may impact cognitive skills, especially math skills, at 3rd and 5th grade. The empirical evidence using several longitudinal surveys with data starting near birth and continuing through at least 3rd grade suggests that fine motor skills is as strong a predictor of later achievement as measures of attention (executive function skills), and that fine motor skills predicts math better than reading. The neuroscience evidence suggests that substantial cognitive capacity and neural infrastructure for learning is built during motor development that may be later used for cognitive development. Deficits is this "neural learning infrastructure" during motor development may subsequently impact the timing and skills learned during later cognitive development. Black boys have the poorest fine motor skills of any racial/ethnic/gender group, followed by black girls, but all free-lunch and other children can have poor fine motor skills. While recent experimental evidence suggests that improving executive function skills may impact cognitive skills, virtually no experimental evidence exists specifically testing whether improving fine motor skills improves math achievement. The proposed research is to do an experimental evaluation of the costs and effects of two fine motor skill interventions. The first intervention is a widely used, commercially available intervention (CALLIROBICS) that combines increasingly complex fine motor exercises in workbooks with accompanying music. The second intervention is one designed and administered by occupational therapists that utilizes their diagnostic skills and professionally approved methods to improve fine motor skills. The interventions will be carried out in after school settings in six schools in groups of 6-8 children for approximately 45-60 minutes four days a week for three semesters. Approximately 300 1st graders will participate in the experiment even divided between the two interventions and a control group. The children will be selected based on a pre-screening evaluation of motor skills together with their free lunch status. Schools would be selected having disproportionately high free lunch and minority populations. The children would be tested in one-on one conditions by school psychologists on fine motor skills, executive functions skills and math skills at the beginning, mid-point and end of the project. Teachers will provide assessments of the child's social, behavioral and self-regulation skills at the beginning and end of the experiment. An important element of the project is the estimation of the costs of the interventions in experimental and scaled-up scenarios allowing comparisons of the two interventions using cost-effectiveness measures as well as similar comparisons for interventions to improve math achievement that also have cost and effects data. The project is evaluating a new avenue for improving math achievement and if successful, will have a scientific impact on the ways that the relationships between motor and cognitive skills are conceptualized in the developmental and neuroscience communities. It would also have an impact on educational policy by linking math achievement not only to the direct teaching of mathematics, but to the non-math curricular activities that could be used to build fine motor skills as well as resources devoted to building fine motor skills. However, improving math achievement for minority and free lunch children could narrow achievement gaps that have not changed for 25 years, and potentially improve longer term outcomes for children that disproportionately are represented in high school dropout, teen pregnancies, addictive behaviors, welfare utilization, low wage jobs and the unemployed. The project would start October1, 2009 and the interventions would start in February, 2010 and continue during the first and second semester of the 2010-2011 school year. The proposal funding would provide the resources for part-time employment over two years for 6 occupational therapists, 10 school psychologist, 6 post-doctoral students in school psychology, 6 logistics coordinators from parents in the school population, a web-site designer, a project director, an assessment psychologist and two researchers. All the employment effects would start at latest by January 15 when training of all categories of personnel participating in the experiment would occur. Public Health Relevance: Improving educational outcomes is likely to improve public health especially if the improved outcomes are for minority and disadvantaged students. Several early childhood experimental interventions that have followed individuals into adult years show higher levels of high school graduation, teen pregnancy, delinquent behavior and incarceration, addictions, welfare utilization and low wage jobs. Nearly all of these have implications for public health either directly for the individual or through the higher social and health costs incurred. The proposed work experimentally tests two fine motor interventions that if success will raise math achievement scores for disadvantaged and minority students which in turn predict higher levels of education and greater avoidance of the above conditions.

描述(由申请人提供)：本申请涉及广泛的挑战领域(12)科学、技术、工程和数学教育，以及具体的挑战领域12-OD-101，促进STEM能力的教育方法的有效性。提案的题目是《促进精细运动技能发展以提升数学能力》。历史上，运动和认知发展一直被认为是相对独立发展的技能，但最近的证据表明，它们密不可分。最近的神经科学和实证研究表明，幼儿园和一年级的精细运动技能落后可能会影响三年级和五年级的认知技能，特别是数学技能。使用几项纵向调查的经验证据表明，精细运动技能与注意力指标(执行功能技能)一样，都是未来成就的有力预测指标，而精细运动技能对数学的预测效果好于阅读。神经科学证据表明，大量的认知能力和学习的神经基础设施是在运动发育过程中建立的，以后可能会用于认知发展。运动发育过程中的这种“神经学习基础设施”的缺陷可能会影响在以后的认知发展过程中学习的时机和技能。在所有种族/民族/性别群体中，黑人男孩的精细运动技能最差，其次是黑人女孩，但所有免费午餐和其他儿童的精细运动技能都很差。虽然最近的实验证据表明，提高执行功能技能可能会影响认知技能，但几乎没有实验证据专门测试提高精细运动技能是否会提高数学成绩。这项拟议的研究是对两种精细运动技能干预的成本和效果进行实验评估。第一种干预是一种广泛使用的商业干预(Callirobics)，它将练习本中日益复杂的精细运动练习与伴奏音乐结合在一起。第二种干预是由职业治疗师设计和实施的，利用他们的诊断技能和专业认可的方法来提高精细运动技能。这些干预措施将在六所学校的课后环境中进行，以6-8名儿童为一组，每周四天，为期三个学期，时间约为45-60分钟。大约300名一年级学生将参加这项实验，其中包括两个干预组和一个控制组。这些儿童将根据对运动技能的预先筛选评估以及他们的免费午餐状态进行选择。学校将被选中，免费午餐和少数族裔人口比例高得不成比例。这些孩子将在一对一的条件下接受学校心理学家在项目开始、中期和结束时的精细运动技能、执行功能技能和数学技能的测试。在实验开始和结束时，老师将对孩子的社交、行为和自我调节能力进行评估。该项目的一个重要内容是在实验和扩大情况下对干预措施的成本进行估计，从而能够使用成本效益措施对两种干预措施进行比较，并对干预措施进行类似的比较，以提高也有成本和效果数据的数学成绩。该项目正在评估一种提高数学成绩的新途径，如果成功，将对发展和神经科学界将运动技能和认知技能之间的关系概念化的方式产生科学影响。它还将对教育政策产生影响，因为它不仅将数学成绩与数学的直接教学联系起来，还将与可用于培养精细运动技能的非数学课程活动以及致力于培养精细运动技能的资源联系起来。然而，提高少数族裔儿童和免费午餐儿童的数学成绩，可能会缩小25年来没有改变的成绩差距，并有可能改善儿童的长期结果，这些儿童在高中辍学、青少年怀孕、成瘾行为、福利利用、低薪工作和失业者中占不成比例。该项目将于2009年10月1日开始，干预措施将于2010年2月开始，并在2010-2011学年的第一学期和第二学期继续进行。拟议资金将用于在两年内雇用6名职业治疗师、10名学校心理学家、6名学校心理学博士后、6名学生家长的后勤协调员、1名网站设计师、1名项目主任、1名评估心理学家和2名研究人员。所有就业效应最迟将于1月15日开始，届时将对参与试验的所有类别人员进行培训。 公共卫生相关性：改善教育结果可能会改善公共健康，特别是如果改善的结果是针对少数群体和弱势学生的话。对成年后的儿童进行的几项早期实验干预显示，高中毕业率、青少年怀孕、犯罪行为和监禁、上瘾、福利利用和低薪工作的比例更高。几乎所有这些都对公共卫生产生影响，或者直接影响到个人，或者通过所产生的更高的社会和卫生成本来影响公共卫生。这项拟议的工作对两种精细运动干预进行了实验测试，如果成功，这两种干预措施将提高弱势学生和少数族裔学生的数学成绩，进而预示着更高的教育水平和更多地避免上述情况。