Motor Development: Exploring the motor competence of 4-year-old Norwegian children

Abstract

This study set out to explore motor competence in 4-year-old children. This age group has not been previously tested in Norway. Ninety-one 4-year-old children from ten nursery schools were tested using the Movement ABC test. The most striking finding was that only one out of 91 children would be classified as clumsy within the fifth percentile of the USA norms, with seven children being 'borderline'. The study also showed that out of the eight children failing in the motor impaired and borderline groups, seven were boys. Clear sex differences were also apparent in the development of motor skills. On the total scores and in the two of three sections (manual dexterity and balance) boys were significantly worse than girls. There were no significant differences between the sexes with respect to ball skills competence.

Influences of gender and socioeconomic status on the motor proficiency of children in the UK

“…What is even more worrying about the low average score of participants is that the BOT-2 BF motor proficiency assessment tool is designed to assess motor deficiencies and therefore consists of basic tasks. These findings coincide with previous research findings worldwide that typically demonstrate average or Running Head: Motor proficiency of children in the UK 11 below average motor proficiency in children Booth, 2004 andSigmunson &Rostoft, 2003), with few exceptions (Chow et al, 2001). …”

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“…The results are similar to the previous estimates, the general range reported are 5-10 % (Kadesjö & Gillberg, 1999). Sigmundsson & Rostoft (2003) tested 91 pre-school children aged four to five years, and found only one out of these children would be classified as motor impaired, but seven children as `borderline`, that means that they are in risk sone to develop motor impairment. Some findings indicate that boys more often have motor problems than found among girls (Missiuna et al, 2008).…”

“…To draw comparison to previous research shows 5-10 % of children to be classified as motor impaired (Zwicker et al, 2012;Kadesjö & Gillberg, 1999). This result also indicate motor problems to be more common in the 6-year-age than in the 4-year-age (Sigmundsson & Rostoft, 2003). There might be a causal connection between low activity level and motor competence, and a possible explanation can be that children who fall within the borderline rating to be less inclined to take part in motor activities at which their more skilled peers excel, resulting in their becoming more incompetent by the age (Cantell et al, 2008;Smyth & Anderson, 2000).…”

“…Previous studies shows girls to do better than boys in balance-skills (Gallahue & Ozmun, 2006), and shows no differences between the sexes with respect to ball skills (Maeland, 1992). However, motor development are complex processes, and there is no agreement why boys are supposed to be more affected (Sigmundsson & Rostoft, 2003).…”

Fundamental motor skills of Czech children at the end of the preschool period

“…Conversely, girls' locomotor proficiency has more often been reported as higher than boys (Barnett, Morgan, van Beurden, & Beard, 2008;Hardy et al, 2009;van Beurden, Zask, Barnett, & Dietrich, 2002). Most studies focused on balance or fine motor skills have found better results in girls (Flatters, Hill, Williams, Barber, & Mon-Williams, 2014;Livesey et al, 2007;Sigmundsson & Rostoft, 2003;Venetsanou & Kambas, 2011;Vlachos, Papadimitrou, & Bonoti, 2014), or have not revealed any significant gender differences (Shala, 2009;Singh et al, 2015;Van Waelvelde, Peersman, Lenoir, Smits Engelsman, & Henderson, 2008).…”