Motor Ability vs. Motor Skill

Summary

Motor Ability: Genetically predetermined characteristics that effect movement performance.

• Shaped by biological, physiological and enviromental factors
• Gross Motor Ability and Perceptual Motor

Motor Skill: The combined ability and knowledge which allow you to complete a task to a high standard.

• Fine and gross motor skills

Motor Skill

David Brace

• Motor Skills:
• Are learned
• Require an end goal
• Are achieved with consistency
• Ability is required

• Professor at University of Texas
• Established department of Physical and Health Education
• General Motor Ability Hypothesis
• The existence of only one motor ability
• The "all around athlete"
• Brace Scale of Motor Ability Tests
• Intended to measure general ability

• 2 Types of Skills
• Fine Motor Skills
• Gross Motor Skills

Motor Ability vs. Motor Skill

Fleishman's Taxonomy Cont.

Gross Motor Abilities:

• Involved with movement, linked to fitness
• Underlying characteristics that contribute to moving a limb or limbs successfully
• Innate inherited traits
• Skills require two or more of these abilities

Perceptual Motor Abilities

• Processing information and implementing the movement
• Related to process of receiving, recognizing, selecting and organizing information that we receive from our senses

Fine Motor Skill

Definitions

Gross Motor Skill

Motor Ability: Genetically predetermined characteristics that effect movement performance.

Motor Skill: The combined ability and knowledge which allow you to complete a task to a high standard.

Fine Motor Skill: The abilities required to control the smaller muscles of the body.

Development:

• Develop over a long period of time
• Primarily during childhood

Gross Motor Skill: The abilities required in order to control the large muscles of the body.

Two Principles That Control Gross Motor Skill Development:

• Head to toe development
• Trunk to extremities

Motor Ability

Fleishman

Franklin Henry

• George Mason University
• American Psychologist
• Fleishman's Taxonomy of Motor Ability

The SAID Principle

Abilities

• UC Berkley Professor of Physical Education
• (1958) SAID Principle: Specificity Adaptions to Imposed Demands
• Many motor abilities are relatively independent in an individual
• i.e. Cross training

• Abilities are shaped by biological, physiological, and environmental factors.
• Composition of muscular tissue affects strength, endurance, and flexibility
• Development of rods and cones limits perceptual motor abilities, i.e. reaction time
• Wealthy/underprivileged upbringings affect motor ability development

Gross Motor Abilities or

Physical Proficiency

Abilities

Perceptual Motor

Abilities