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The present study was devoted to test the validity of the Italian adaptation of the Motor Observation Questionnaire for Teachers (MOQ-T, Schoemaker, Flapper, Reinders-Messelink, & De Kloet, 2008 ) as a fast screening instrument, based on teachers’ ratings, for detecting developmental coordination disorders symptoms and to study its relationship with praxic and visuospatial working memory deficits. In a first study on a large sample of children, we assessed the reliability and structure of the Italian adaptation of the MOQ-T. Results showed a good reliability of the questionnaire and a hierarchical structure with two first-order factors (reflecting motor and handwriting skills), which are influenced by a second-order factor (general motor function) at the top. In a second study, we looked at the external validity of the MOQ-T and found that children with symptoms of Developmental Coordination Disorder (children with high scores on the MOQ-T) also had difficulty reproducing gestures, either imitating others or in response to verbal prompts. Our results also showed that children with high MOQ-T scores had visuospatial WM impairments. The theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to deal with a method for gesture encoding and reproduction, particularly aiming at a text-to-gesture (TTG) system that enables robotic agents to generate proper gestures automatically and naturally in human-robot interaction. Design/methodology/approach – Reproducing proper gestures, naturally synchronized with speech, is important under the TTG concept. The authors first introduce a gesture model that is effective to abstract and describe a variety of human gestures. Based on the model, a gesture encoding/decoding scheme is proposed to encode observed gestures symbolically and parametrically and to reproduce robot gestures from the codes. In particular, this paper mainly addresses a gesture scheduling method that deals with the alignment and refinement of gestural motions, in order to reproduce robotic gesticulation in a human-like, natural fashion. Findings – The proposed method has been evaluated through a series of questionnaire surveys, and it was found that reproduced gestures by a robotic agent could appeal satisfactorily to human beings. Originality/value – This paper provides a series of algorithms to treat overlapped motions and to refine the timing parameters for the motions, so that robotic agents reproduce human-like, natural gestures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]