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The relative age effect (RAE) suggests that athletes may be provided with greater opportunities for success depending on the position of their birthdate in a sport's selection year. While the effect has been well established in men's sports, less is known about women's sports. This study examined the RAE in developmental girls' hockey in Ontario. Relative age, player position, age division, and level of play were provided by the Ontario Women's Hockey Association for 36,555 registrants. Older players were over-represented, and younger players under-represented across all age divisions and levels of play. This suggests that the RAE is present in developmental girls' hockey, the magnitude of which varies with level of play and player position.

The relative age effect refers to the performance-related advantage of being born early in a cohort or selection year. Until recently it was unknown whether the relative age effect generalizes across the lifespan. Medic, Starkes, and Young (2007) reasoned that the 5-year age categories that are widely used in masters-level sports to organize competitions and award prizes might be used to examine whether a relative age effect exists in older sports populations beyond the age of 35 years. Given the preliminary nature of Medic et al.'s (2007) results, along with their acknowledgment that those results "might not be generalizable to masters athletes from sports other than swimming and track and field or to masters athletes from countries other than the United States" (p. 1383), one purpose of this study was to determine if Medic et al.'s (2007) relative age effect findings can be replicated with world-class masters swimmers and track and field athletes from different countries. The second purpose of this study was to determine if a relative age effect exists in previously unexamined sports, such as masters weightlifting and rowing. The results of this study indicated that a relative age effect exists in masters swimming and track and field, but not in masters weightlifting and rowing, suggesting that this effect depends on the sport in which masters-level athletes compete. In particular, the authors' findings showed that the likelihood of participating in the world-level masters swimming competition is higher for individuals in the first year of an age category. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

This investigation makes three noteworthy contributions to literature on the Relative Age Effect (RAE); 1) it adds to the small number of studies in women's sports, 2) it is one of very few papers to examine the RAE in intercollegiate athletics, and 3) it (re-)introduces "academic timing" to the discussion of RAEs in this context. The 50 top-ranked NCAA Division I women's softball teams at the conclusion of the 2011 season served as the focus for this investigation. Student-athletes were grouped into quartiles according to their birth date and identified as "on-time" or "academically delayed" based on their birth year and eligibility status. On-time student-athletes were over four times more likely to be born in quartile one than in quartile four, demonstrating a traditional RAE. This pattern was reversed for those who were academically delayed, with quartile four birth dates constituting more than half of the entire sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have contended that patterns of age-related decline are not necessarily due to age, but rather to disuse, or declining practice (Bortz, 1982; Ericsson, 2000; Maharam, Bauman, Kalman, Skolnik, & Perle, 1999). A regression approach was used to examine age and training variables as predictors of 10-km running performance between 40 and 59 years of age. A sample of 30 Masters runners (M age = 50.1 years, M 10-km time = 39:19) reported data for ongoing training, cumulative running in the past 5 years, and cumulative running earlier in a career. In Analysis 1, ongoing training variables explained more variance in performance than age alone, and reduced the unique variance attributable to age in a combined model. In Analysis 2, findings were replicated using past cumulative running variables and age; running in the past 5 years explained more unique variance than age alone. Discussion focuses on how findings relate to the selective maintenance account (Krampe & Ericsson, 1996), how various aspects of training help to preserve performance in aging populations, and recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments are reported that focus on manipulating both the context and the spatial precision of a computer-pointing task. Single goal-directed actions are compared to dual-phase tasks, where participants are required to sequentially attain two goal locations. Results support the idea that for movements in series, movement planning, and online feedback, control can occur simultaneously. Additionally, for single-phase tasks and the final phase of dual-phase tasks, the termination requirement influences the temporal components of the movement. The effects of termination and movement context appear to hold regardless of the spatial precision of the task. This suggests that the effects of spatial precision and movement termination are independent, although both have an impact on the deceleration time for goal-directed movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent work in the area of sport expertise suggests that practice patterns can also play a critical role in maintaining athletic performance. This article examines the contribution of both physiological changes and practice patterns to swimming performances of master-, international-, junior-national-, and varsity-level swimmers. A comparison of the practice patterns of these groups suggests that master athletes spend significantly less time per week training for competition, and their training focus is on endurance, not strength. Younger swimmers train for endurance, strength, speed, and power. The authors suggest that these differences might be partly responsible for age-related performance changes. Performance changes for semilongitudinal and cross-sectional samples are characterized by significant quadratic beta weight, indicating increasing declines in performance starting at around 60 years of age. These data are discussed with respect to the role that practice plays in explaining performance changes with age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary raises some issues still unresolved in the study of the reach-to-grasp movement, namely the operational definition of the components of the reach-to-grasp movement, the independence of these components, and the equivocal interpretation of the existing literature. Lastly, this commentary addresses issues pertaining to object properties that require both visual and haptic determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. In the present research the authors examined the time course of binocular integration in goal-directed aiming and grasping. With liquid-crystal goggles, the authors manipulated vision independently to the right [...]

Objective:To qualitatively examine factors that contribute to successful aging during different decades of older adulthood. Methods:Fundamental qualitative description was adopted as the methodological framework. Through purposeful sampling, 42 community dwelling older adults (mean age = 79.6 years, age range = 65–97 years; 19 males) were recruited. Focus groups (6) segmented by decade of life were conducted with participants 65–74 (n= 17) and 75–84 (n= 17) years of age. Semi-structured interviews (16) were conducted with four participants from each decade, as well as participants 85 years of age and older (n= 8). Data analyses were conducted independently for each decade of life and included inductive analysis of textual data through continuous comparisons of meaning units. Results:Three primary themes related to successful aging were identified across all decades of older adulthood: (1)staying healthy(secondary themes:geneticsandlifestyle choices), (2)maintaining an active engagement in life(secondary themes:social engagementandcognitive engagement), and (3)keeping a positive outlook on life. Participants in specific decades of older adulthood identified three additional secondary themes related tomaintaining an active engagement in life:finances(65–74 and 85+ years),social support(75+ years), andsuccessful marriage(75+ years). Similarly, only adults 65–84 years of age identified a secondary theme forkeeping a positive outlook on life: acceptance and adaptation. Conclusion:Primary themes related to successful aging were agreed upon by participants in all decades of older adulthood, while age-based differences existed among secondary themes. Thus, what it means to age successfully may be age-dependent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on Masters Athletes (MAs) has increased significantly over the last decade, as investigators have realized that this unique cohort enables us to understand perspectives on the aging process, and its relationship with deliberate practice and sport expertise. This wave of empirical work also reflects increasing interest in appraising how individuals remain motivated and committed to sport in older adulthood. A seminal leader in this area has been Dr. Janet Starkes, whose multidisciplinary and collaborative research contributed significantly to this surge. This paper will trace Dr. Starkes' contributions beginning with the context for her research on aged sport expertise and her seminal publication on MAs in 1999, followed by a description of how this and other early works precipitated further studies on aging athletes. The merging of paradigms, conceptual premises, methodological approaches, the evolution of the field of MAs, and lessons learned will be highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relative age effects (RAEs) in sport often exist when children are grouped into annual age-bands (Barnsley & Thompson, 1988). Recent female studies show different RAE patterns than male sports (Delorme et al., 2010; Weir et al., 2010). Thus, investigations into female RAEs that explain, rather than replicate, RAEs are warranted. One mechanism that might explain RAEs is physical maturity (Musch & Grondin, 2001). Our purpose was to examine if RAEs were tempered in a pre-pubescent sample (4 to 12 years) where physical maturity differences attributed to puberty are lessened. We used multiple chi-squares to analyze registration data for 39,204 female youth ice hockey players and found RAEs with the highest over-representations in the second quartile. We offer explanations for the results and for why physical maturity differences might not temper RAEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to examine differences in motivational regulations and achievement goal orientations between Masters athletes who do and do not have a coach. Elite Masters athletes (N = 71) were surveyed at the Canadian and USA Masters Track and Field Championships. The Sport Motivation Scale (Pelletier et al., 1995) and Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (Duda & Nicholls, 1992) assessed motivational regulations and achievement goals, respectively. For motivational regulations, multiple analyses of variance revealed that there was a significant main effect for having a coach (p < .01) and for gender (p < .05), as well as a significant interaction for having a coach by gender (p < .01). Specifically, females who had a coach reported the highest levels of intrinsic motivation to accomplish and intrinsic motivation to know. Further, females who did not have a coach reported highest levels of amotivation for sport. For goal orientations, multiple analyses of variance also revealed a significant main effect for having a coach (p < .05). Specifically, Masters athletes who did not train with a coach reported higher ego orientation than those who had a coach. Findings from this study suggest the existence of a positive relationship between training with a coach and having self-determined motives among Masters athletes, especially for females, as well as on placing less importance on normative comparisons of performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]