Associations of Motor and Cardiovascular Performance with Academic Skills in Children

Abstract

Poorer motor performance was associated with worse academic skills in children, especially among boys. These findings emphasize early identification of children with poor motor performance and actions to improve these children's motor performance and academic skills during the first school years.

Relationships between Motor Proficiency and Academic Performance in Mathematics and Reading in School-Aged Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

“…A total of 19 (65%) studies [21,40,44,48,49,52,53,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66] used standardized assessment tools to measure both fine motor proficiency and academic performance in mathematics. Of the 29 studies that examined these variables, 12 (41%) [40,48,51,54,56,57,59,64,65,66,67,68] were categorized as having ‘good’ methodological quality, 10 (34%) [44,49,52,55,58,60,61,62,69,70] were categorized as having ‘fair’ methodological quality, and seven (24%) [21,43,45,53,63,71,72] were categorized as having ‘poor’ methodological quality. A summary of the associations between the components of fine motor proficiency and academic performance in mathematics, along with the levels of evidence supporting the associations can be found in Table 1.…”

“…The relationship between manual dexterity and academic performance in mathematics was examined by nine studies [43,44,45,48,52,55,62,66,68]. Five of the six studies [43,48,52,55,66,68] reporting significant positive associations were classified as having fair to good methodological quality.…”

“…Five of the six studies [43,48,52,55,66,68] reporting significant positive associations were classified as having fair to good methodological quality. The four studies [48,52,55,66] that reported results from correlation analyses found significant very weak to weak positive correlations (r = 0.11−0.37) between manual dexterity tasks and mathematical ability.…”

“…The four studies [48,52,55,66] that reported results from correlation analyses found significant very weak to weak positive correlations (r = 0.11−0.37) between manual dexterity tasks and mathematical ability. One longitudinal study [68] found that the smaller number of cubes moved in a box and block task was associated with poorer arithmetic skills for boys in grades 1 and 2, but not for girls in the same grades. Another study [43], classified as having ‘poor’ methodological quality, reported significant strong correlations between the time taken to stack a tower of cubes and scores on a mathematics skills test for children aged nine to 16 years (r = −0.643 to −0.727, p < 0.05).…”

Physiology and assessment as low-hanging fruit for education overhaul

“…There is ample evidence that physical exercise contributes to the prevention of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases (Fiuza-Luces, Garatachea, Berger, and Lucia 2013), but its impact on cognition has been greatly underestimated. Yet, in the past decade investigators have given increasing attention to the topic (Chaddock, Pontifex, Hillman, and Kramer 2011;Diamond and Lee 2011;Haapala et al 2014;Masley et al 2009). …”