Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Just do it! . . . haptically

Adding touch to movement, tactile to kinesthetic, has proven to be very powerful, especially in getting learners to anchor sounds or sound processes consistently in the same location in the visual field. According to this 2011 research by Smith and colleagues at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, summarized by Science Daily, achieving that kind of precision, which is very important to efficient haptic work, is best accomplished by ". . .continually adjusting the goals of practice movements so that systematic differences (errors) between these movements and the intended motion can be reduced . ."

clip art: Clker
Furthermore, one of the implications is  " . . . a new approach to neurological rehabilitation: one that continually adjusts the goals of practice movements so that systematic differences (errors) between these movements and the intended motion can be reduced." In other words, the learner's attention must be constantly redirected to better positioning or touch or resonance or general form of a haptically embodied sound, providing a very rich type of "motion-referenced learning."

In terms of EHIEP work, that means, for example, focusing on a different parameter of a pedagogical movement pattern, rather than a "simple" repetition beyond a few iterations, such as the positioning, speed, intensity of contact between hands, etc., in anchoring a new or "corrected" sound. The articulation involved may not change perceptively but the practice will continue to be experienced as progressive motor learning, in the sense of the Harvard study.

 It is actually quite easy--once you stop thinking about it . . . and just do it. 

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