This book is divided into sections. Each section is devoted to a
particular issue in Motor Development and comprises two or more
contributions. The order of presentation mirrors the order of
presentation at the Institute and thus is not entirely fortuitous!
Nevertheless, it does not reflect any value judgement on the part of the
editors as to the importance of anyone issue in comparison to others
addressed in the book. This volume is to be seen as a companion volume
to 'Themes in Moto!' Development' in which the more specific topics
presented during the Institute are published. Together, the two volumes
provide both a general and theme specific approach to this expanding
field of knowledge. XI PREFACE Books and conferences, on what in North
America is euphemistically termed motor development, have been few and
far between in the past 25 years. This is not to say that the study of
how children acquire and develop motor skills has not been a subject on
which scientists have focused their attention. In the United States in
the 1930's and 1940's, Bayley (1935) and Gesell and Amatruda (1947)
described and scaled the rates at which young children acquired motor
skills. In Europe, the development of childrens' motor behaviour was of
theoretical interest to Piaget (1952).