Editing Muscle memory (section)

=== Learning in childhood ===
The way in which a child learns a gross motor skill can affect how long it takes to consolidate it and be able to reproduce the movement.  In a study with preschoolers, looking at the role of self-instruction on acquiring complex gross motor chains using [[ballet]] positions, it was found that the motor skills were better learned and remembered with the self-instruction procedure over the no-self-instruction procedure.<ref name="Vintere">{{cite journal |last1=Vintere |first1=P. |last2=Hemmes |first2=N. S. |last3=Brown |first3=B. L. |last4=Poulson |first4=C. L. |year=2004 |title=Gross-Motor Skill Acquisition by Preschool Dance Stoudents Under Self-Instruction Procedures |journal=Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=305–322 |doi= 10.1901/jaba.2004.37-305|pmc=1284506 |pmid=15529888}}</ref> This suggests that the use of self-instruction will increase the speed with which a preschooler will learn and remember a gross motor skill. It was also found that once the preschoolers learned and mastered the motor chain movements, they ceased the use of self-instruction. This suggests that the memory for the movements became strong enough that there was no longer a need for self-instruction and the movements could be reproduced without it.<ref name="Vintere" />