Clumsiness: kinaesthetic perception and translation.

Earlier findings have suggested that abnormal clumsiness in children is associated with a perceptual defect in the kinaesthetic modality, and with a defect of the translation between stimulus and response. In this experiment, perception was investigated by manipulating the requirement to discriminate between kinaesthetic stimuli, and the translation process by manipulating stimulus-response compatibility. Consistent with earlier findings, the kinaesthetic reaction time of clumsy children was found to be longer than that of controls; but, although the requirement to discriminate between stimuli and incompatibility both lengthened reaction times, the increases were similar for clumsy and control groups. It is suggested that these negative findings may be attributable to a practice effect in the former, and to inadequate loading on the translation process in the latter. However, it is also suggested that the findings may indicate that clumsiness is associated with a defect in the cross-modal translation of information.