Relationships between gross- and fine motor functions, cognitive abilities, and self-regulatory aspects of students with physical disabilities.
Students with severe physical limits but normal IQ hold accurate negative self-views, while those with added ID hold overly sunny ones—so tailor feedback to each profile.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Varsamis et al. (2015) looked at high-school and young-adult students who had physical disabilities. Some also had intellectual disability.
The team tested each student’s gross-motor skills, fine-motor skills, IQ, and self-regulation. Then they drew profiles to see how the pieces fit together.
What they found
Kids with mild motor problems but normal thinking skills felt good about themselves and set realistic goals.
Kids with severe motor problems and normal thinking skills saw themselves more negatively, but their views matched reality.
Kids with both severe motor and cognitive disabilities gave themselves high marks that did not match real performance.
How this fits with other research
Houwen et al. (2016) studied younger children with IDD and found the same tight link between motor and thinking skills. Their work stretches the idea down to toddlers, showing the bond starts early.
Dubé et al. (2024) grouped teens with ID by social style. Like Panagiotis, they saw that self-views shift with ability level. Both papers warn that feedback must fit the student’s real profile.
Gardner et al. (2009) surveyed teachers of severe-ID teens and heard “low self-determination.” That sounds opposite to the overly positive self-views Panagiotis found, but the difference is severity. W’s students had more cognitive delay, so teachers saw passivity while the students still over-rated themselves.
Why it matters
Match your praise to the student’s profile. If the teen has sharp thinking but weak muscles, give honest, specific feedback and teach coping plans. If the teen also has cognitive delays, check understanding with demonstrations and peer models before celebrating success. These small shifts keep self-belief both hopeful and real.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This article reports research on self-regulatory aspects (i.e., goal-setting, self-efficacy and self-evaluation) of secondary and post-secondary students with congenital motor disabilities, who performed a ball-throwing-at-a-target task. Participants were divided into four subgroups presenting distinct combinations of motor and cognitive abilities (i.e., normal cognitive development and mild physical disabilities, normal cognitive development and severe physical disabilities, mild-to-moderate intellectual disability and mild physical disabilities, and mild-to-moderate intellectual disability and severe physical disabilities). Results showed that students presenting mild motor disabilities exhibited a positive self-concept and self-regulation profile, irrespective of their cognitive functioning. Students with considerable motor disabilities, but without cognitive challenges, presented a negative, though realistic self-concept and self-regulation profile. Finally, students with considerable motor disabilities and mild-to-moderate cognitive disabilities showed a positive, though unrealistic, self-regulation profile. The nature of the diverse relationship of motor and cognitive (dis)abilities to specific self-regulatory aspects are discussed, and important instructional implications are mentioned.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2015 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2015.10.009