Abstract

The psychically disabled frequently exhibit stiff movements and poor motor response adaptation. One measure of these phenomena is motor creativity, defined as the ability to produce fluid, varied and original motor responses appropriate to the stimulus situation. To evaluate the efficacy of a six-month programme for improving the motor creativity of psychically disabled persons that is based on Mosston and Ashworth’s systematic variation of movement technique, we measured the motor creativity of 13 moderately disabled subjects, before and after administration of the programme, in terms of the fluency (number of responses), flexibility (variety) and originality (novelty) exhibited in a locomotion task and an object manipulation task. By the end of the programme the group showed a significant improvement in flexibility, which supports the ability of the programme to improve motor response adaptation, but no significant change in fluency or originality.