1. “GAA Nursery Workshop: Creative Ideas and Modified Games through Fundamental Movement Skills”
Mallow GAA Club, Saturday 27th February 2016, 4pm
Presenter: Dr. Wesley O’ Brien

2. Publication Outputs 2013-2015 Publications
O’Brien, W.R., Belton, S., & Issartel, J The relationship between adolescents’ physical activity, fundamental movement skills and weight status. Journal of Sports Sciences.
O’Brien, W.R., Belton, S., & Issartel, J Promoting physical literacy in Irish adolescent youth: The Youth-Physical Activity Towards Health (Y-PATH) intervention. MOJ Public Health.
O’Brien, W.R., Belton, S., & Issartel, J Fundamental movement skill proficiency amongst adolescent youth. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy.
O’ Brien W, Issartel J, Meegan S, et al An overview of the Y-PATH intervention - components and content. In: Seventh Physical Education, Physical Activity and Youth Sport (PEPAYS) Forum, pp. 97–106.
Belton, S., Issartel, J., Meegan, S., Woods, C., O’Brien, W.R Y-PATH: Youth-Physical Activity Towards Health. Evidence and background to the development of a physical activity intervention for adolescents. BMC Public Health.
O’Brien, W.R., Issartel, J & Belton, S Evidence for the efficacy of the Youth-Physical Activity Towards Health (Y-PATH) intervention. Advances in Physical Education.
Belton, S., O’Brien, W.R., Wickel, E., Issartel, J Patterns of non-compliance in adolescent field based accelerometer research. Journal of Physical Activity and Health.
O’ Brien W and Hegarty Current directions in physical activity research in Ireland. In: Mc Carthy U (ed.), Sixth Physical Education, Physical Activity and Youth Sport (PE PAYS) Forum - The Physical Education - Physical Activity Relationship. Exploring and Evaluating the Evidence Base, University of Limerick, pp. 39–47.

4. The Name Game…

6. What are Fundamental Movement Skills?

7. Children have the developmental potential to master most of the FMS by the age of 6 years old (Gallahue and Ozmun, 2006).
Consistently, research highlights levels of youth FMS proficiency are low worldwide (Hardy et al., 2013; 2010; O’ Brien et al., 2013; 2015).
Sufficient evidence that FMS proficiency is positively associated with youth PA (Lubans et al. 2010; Capio et al., 2014)
School-based and club setting provides opportunities to learn basic movement skills (Mitchell et al., 2013; Rudd et al., 2015)

8. Statistical data amongst Irish adolescents specific to movement skill capabilities? (O’ Brien et al., 2015)

18. Why do you think learning FMS is important for children?
Discuss this question in pairs as to why you think these skills are important to acquire or learn?

19. FMS Assessment
A multitude of clinical motor skill assessments have been designed and integrated.
Many of these have a primary focus on the outcome of what the individual can achieve.
Emerging evidence suggests that too often, the focus of FMS assessment is on the product, rather than on the process (Cools et al., 2009; Ulrich, 2000), particularly amongst older children.

21. Motor Development Principles…
Children develop at different rates
Age does not predict motor ability
Children develop motor skills naturally through play
Skillfulness is a result of practice, not gender or heredity

22. “Motor skills do not just come as birthday presents.” “They must be
nurtured, promoted, and practiced.”