The 1963 Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lecture

Central to the concept of occupational therapy are the evaluation, enhancement and use of skilled motor actions. While many central nervous system processes are involved in skilled movement, one aspect of sensorimotor function has come under particular attention lately as a large determinant of fine motor facility. That aspect is perceptualmotor functions, formerly called “eye-hand” coordination. Deficits in this domain are most easily and frequently observed in the patient who can accomplish simple grasp and release with apparent ease yet who cannot accomplish with comparable dexterity such tasks as tying shoes, handling tools or manipulating objects. The possible nature of the dysfunction is described in this paper and hypotheses presented regarding related developmental processes. One of the more generally accepted postulates on which treatment of motor dysfunction is based is the recapitulation of the sequence of development. Accordingly, theories regarding the ontogeny of perceptual-motor abilities provide a basis for treatment of dysfunction in this area of human behavior. The data to which the theoretical system is anchored come largely from a research project conducted at the University of Southern California. (This investigation was supported in part by a PHS research grant MH06878-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health, Public Health Service.) Results of published research by neurophysiologists have served as additional sources of knowledge. Although well supported with scientific facts, the highly provisional nature of the theoretical framework must be kept in mind. It has been necessary to force considerable structure onto the data (largely by omission of detail) in order to make them manageable. As our conceptual formulations become more familiar and secure, we will undoudtedly find that they have oversimplified the true nature of perceptual-motor function and it will be necessary for us to restructure them on a more complex basis.