Development of motor skills and use of practice methods

Phases of learning

Cognitive - Skill performed with errors and little knowledge. Demostrations and explanations needed.

Assosiative - The longest phase people usually stay in. Elimination of mistakes. Skills learnt and mastered

Autonomous - Professional standard. Performed with little conscious though and the motor programme stored in the long term memory.

Types of guidance

Manual guidance - Provides manipulation of the body. It helps for performers to feel how there body should be when perfoming the skill. performers may become reliant on the manual guidance.

Mechanical guidance- This involves a support mechanism. For example arm bands in swimming, They can help to build up confidence and used most in cognitive phase. Disadvantages include that the real feeling is different to what is felt with support.

Verbal guidance- Voice used to encourage/ instruct a performer. performers may become distracted and performers can become reliant on verbal support.

Visual guidance - Provides an exact and visual image for the performer to think and look back on. If it is not shown accuratly, performers may pick up bad habbits and some skills to complex for visual guidance.  

Practice methods

Massed practice- Continuous practice. Saves time. Beginners can lose concentration and motivation.

Distrubuted practice- Practice with rest intervals. Allows performers to recover and maintains motivation.

Fixed practice  - One skill or specific movement is repeatedly practiced in the same environment . It is good for closed skills which require well learnt specific skills. It can become tedious and motivation can be lost.

Varied practice- Skils are practiced in many different environments and situations. Training is varied and areas will be worked on at different times. It keeps up motivation and excitement.

Mental rehearsal/ practice- This involves preparing the mind for the performance. It means that perfomers think through things before they do it to ensure they do all they can and need to.