Attentional Focus Strategies for Promoting Children’s Motor Learning: A Scoping Review With a Learner-Task-Environment Framework

Abstract

There is emerging evidence that attentional focus instructions and feedback may help children with motor learning. However, information relevant to learner characteristics, settings, and contexts in which attentional focus strategies can be used has not been synthesized. Therefore, in this review, we adopted a learner-task-environment framework to map the evidence to date related to attentional focus strategies in children’s motor learning. We adapted the framework for scoping reviews put forth by Arksey and O’Malley (2005) and the enhanced protocol recommended by the Joanna Briggs Institute (Peters et al., 2021). Two researchers (a) identified the research question, (b) identified relevant studies, (c) selected studies, (d) charted the data, and (e) collated, summarized, and reported these results. We included 30 papers, all of which used an experimental or quasi-experimental design. Most studies have focused on typically developing children and those in middle childhood as learners. The movement tasks in these studies included isolated fundamental movement skills and sport-related tasks. All but one study were situated in non-clinical settings (i.e., school, laboratory). We found limited use of attentional focus strategies for learning movement tasks in early childhood, especially among children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Movement tasks were mostly isolated skills, and there was extremely limited application to clinical settings.