The remediation of clumsiness. II. Is kinaesthesis the answer?

The paper reports the second of two studies designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Kinaesthetic Training Programme (Laszlo and Bairstow, 1985) for children with movement difficulties. Three groups of 12 children were matched on age, IQ and sex as well as degree of kinaesthetic and motor impairment. One group received the Laszlo training, another received a training programme designed to avoid explicit reference to kinaesthesis and the third group received no training. Children receiving no intervention failed to show a change in performance. By contrast, the motor competence of both groups of treated children improved significantly. There was no advantage for the Laszlo trained group. It seems that in designing a remediation programme for clumsy children, the way that training is presented is as important as its actual content.