How to Build Perceptual and Motor Skills in Young Athletes

The development of perceptual and motor skills is a major factor for people involved in youth sports. They find it difficult to develop an effective model for training that can help young athletes in learning movements.

Nevertheless, learning more about the topics concerning the development of motor or perceptual skills can be helpful for people involved in learning movements such as:

• Physiotherapists
• Physical education teachers
• Coaches

Let’s learn what perceptual and motor skills are and the methods you can use to prepare an effective exercise for children.

What are Perceptual Motor Skills?

Perceptual motor skills are the child’s ability to engage with the environment using their senses and motor skills. It is when the auditory and visual sensory capabilities are merged with the new motor skills.

Simply put, perceptions mean to take in, organize and interpret information, whereas motor skills are the abilities to control the body’s movements.

Different Activities in Perceptual Motor Skills

Different movements count as perceptual motor skills. For instance, throwing, jumping, and kicking are a few gross motor activities. On the other hand, hammering, cutting, lacing, etc., are fine motor activities.

There are also activities that people might conduct for body and spatial awareness, such as running, performing tasks through different body parts, etc.

Preparing an Effective Training Model for Young Athletes

The training model is the most critical factor in developing perceptual and motor skills for young athletes. Coaches and trainers need to have an effective model that will help improve the athletes’ overall performance. And it all starts with setting the right goals.

It is best to set goals that are difficult but easily attainable. The idea is to push the athletes to strive for something great but not too much. An effective coach will train their athletes for sports excelling through enhancing their physical conditions as well as focusing on perceptual and emotional aspects of training.

Moreover, the coaches should also provide constant feedback to the young athletes. They should tell them about their weakness and assist them in overcoming their shortcomings. Furthermore, it can also increase the confidence level and motivate young athletes.

Furthermore, properly using the training area is also important in developing perceptual and motor skills. The trainer should have equipment in the training area that can display images or other materials for the theoretical phase of training.

Also, there is a good chance that virtual reality systems might become a critical part of training programs for your athletes in the near future. One more thing to keep in mind is the difficulty level of the training program.

It should be appropriate for the athlete to get a higher success rate. Last but not least, verbal teachings and demonstration can help trainees get execution knowledge for a particular movement.

Takeaway

Perceptual and motor skills can help children with a wide range of benefits. They can have better body awareness, judgment, optimal intellectual skills, and good coordination.

With proper physical activity and training, the brain can develop neural pathways, improving the children’s learning ability. Therefore, the development and improvement of perceptual and motor skills can impact the young athlete’s learning ability.

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