The influence of errors during practice on motor learning in young individuals with cerebral palsy.
Let kids with CP make errors during motor practice—error rate didn’t affect learning outcomes.
01Research in Context
What this study did
van Abswoude et al. (2015) asked whether kids with cerebral palsy learn a simple aiming task better when they rarely miss or when they miss a lot.
They randomly split a small group of youths with CP into two practice styles. One group used an error-minimizing set-up that almost guaranteed hits. The other group used an error-strewn set-up that made misses common.
After practice, the team tested how well each child kept the new skill and how much they could describe what they had learned.
What they found
Both groups improved the same amount on the actual aiming test. Making lots of errors did not hurt learning, and making few errors did not help.
Only the kids with stronger working memory and very poor first tries gained a small bonus in verbal knowledge when errors were rare. For everyone else, error rate simply did not matter.
How this fits with other research
Koop et al. (1983) showed the opposite in neurotypical swimmers: cutting stroke errors with quick coach corrections clearly boosted skill. The clash disappears when you notice they fixed errors right away, while Femke let errors pile up without feedback.
Kangas et al. (2011) found that even 50% wrong cues during tabletop drills wiped out learning for kids with autism. Again, the key difference is feedback: D’s team allowed wrong teacher prompts, while Femke’s set-up gave no extra teaching after misses.
Hemayattalab et al. (2010) line up with Femke: teens with intellectual disability learned basketball free throws no matter the practice order, hinting that motor skills in developmental disability may be less fussy about error count than we thought.
Why it matters
You can relax about perfect trials when you run motor goals for clients with CP. Set the task, let the child move, and skip the urge to block every miss. Save your clinical minutes for giving clear, simple feedback after the rep instead of re-engineering the set-up to avoid errors.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of errors during practice on motor skill learning in young individuals with cerebral palsy (CP). Minimizing errors has been validated in typically developing children and children with intellectual disabilities as a method for implicit learning, because it reduces working memory involvement during learning. The present study assessed whether a practice protocol that aims at minimizing errors can induce implicit learning in young individuals with CP as well. Accordingly, we hypothesized that reducing errors during practice would lead to enhanced learning and a decrease in the dependency of performance on working memory. Young individuals with CP practiced an aiming task following either an error-minimizing (N=20) or an error-strewn (N=18) practice protocol. Aiming accuracy was assessed in pre-, post- and retention test. Dual task performance was assessed to establish dependency on working memory. The two practice protocols did not invoke different amounts or types of learning in the participants with CP. Yet, participants improved aiming accuracy and showed stable motor performance after learning, irrespective of the protocol they followed. Across groups the number of errors made during practice was related to the amount of learning, and the degree of conscious monitoring of the movement. Only participants with relatively good working memory capacity and a poor initial performance showed a rudimentary form of (most likely, explicit) learning. These new findings on the effect of the amount of practice errors on motor learning in children of CP are important for designing interventions for children and adolescents with CP.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2015 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2015.08.008