The Article Summary by Ader, Lambregts, Leemrijse, Meijer, and Vermeer
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The article by Ader, Lambregts, Leemrijse, Meijer, and Vermeer discusses detection of change in children whose motor activity has been impaired. The detection of mild and moderate impairment measures the movement ABC using a standard error. These authors were only interested in establishing whether the ABC movement has the ability to monitor a change in motor performance.
A review of literature in this field unearthed several written materials about learners with special needs (Dewey & Tupper, 2004). However, most of these studies involved recommendations for changing the quality of special learning in schools for learners with special needs. None of the materials reviewed investigated motor changes and improvements in the children. Nevertheless, some literature indicated the need for doing more research on the nature of some of the conditions from which the special children have. In addition, it called for much research and follow up on the children to identify their conditions after extended periods (Geuze, 2007).
The participants in the study were selected with caution. Three of the participants were girls and 20 were boys. The subjects were aged between 6 to 8 years. The researchers used a complex analytical process where the principal outcome measures were determined differently. Measurement of the scores was done using each item at a time. The score ranged from 0 to 5. The score was subsequently added to a cluster that ranged from 0 t0 15, which in turn formed total scores running up to 40. At this point, cluster scores were added. A number of factors were then analyzed per item. These included least detectable differences, mean scores, as well as standard errors of measurement. This procedure was repeated for the total scores and cluster. To account for the effects of time, the authors say they performed a repeat analysis of variance measure. It is worth noting all the participants were members of a special school and consent were obtained from the concerned parents. The teacher of special need facilitated the process. Among the 20 boys, 5 were chronically ill and their handling called for sensitivity.
As this experiment was ongoing, it was ensured there was no interference from either the teacher or the other learners with special needs. This was made mandatory so that the outcomes obtained would be credible. However, complete elimination of such errors would not be possible practically. When the results and observations were read, the total score of the first session were high. For the subsequent sessions, a substantial improvement was noted and recorded. For instance, during the first session, the mean score was 15.4 points. It dropped to a mean of 13.3 during the second round and then to 13.2 during the third session. In short, the average scores for the item ranged from 0.6 to 2.7. The standard errors of scores ranged from 0.79 to 1.54 while that for the least detectable differences was 4.18 to 5.11.
Theauthorsmanaged to drawnumerousconclusions from theexperiment. Themovement ABC had a totalscore that grewsensitive to individualchange monitoring. In addition, theclusterscoresregisteredsensitivity of mild to moderatedegree. Eachitemwas not appropriatefor monitoring allthechangesexpected. Theyconcludedthattheeffect of time, which theyconsideredsignificant, could be interpreted as one impact of learning (Ader, Lambregts, Leemrijse, Meijer, Vermeer, 1999).