Physical, Perceptual, Socio-Relational and Affective Limitation of Five-Years-Old Children Born Preterm and Full-Term.

Abstract

Purpose: To compare the development of physical-motor, perceptual-motor and socio-relational and affective skills of five-years-old children born preterm and full term, completing the Checklist of Psychomotor Activities.Methods: A prospective simple ex-post facto study was conducted. The sample consisted of six hundred ninety-four (694) five-year-old children enrolled in the third year of early childhood education in the Province of Albacete-Spain. This study is based on medical histories - prior parental written consents - and the results of evaluating the motor skills completing the Checklist of Psychomotor Activities (CPA).Results: The study determined that children born preterm have a lower development of their physical-motor skills. In the perceptual-motor field, premature children show lower scores in the variables related to their body image and body schema, motor dissociation and visual-motor coordination, as well as in socio-relational and affective aspects. However, regarding laterality, dynamic coordination, motor execution, tonic-postural control and balance, the development of these skills is not affected.Conclusions: The study demonstrates the needs to establish protocols oriented to the prevention of the difficulties detected in children with psychomotor high-risk and also the needs to reinforce the educational programs in this particular area to improve the integral development of children born preterm since they show less development of physical-motor perceptual-motor, socio-relational and affective skills.

Teacher-Rated Executive Functions, Gender and Relative Age: Independent and Interactive Effects on Observed Fundamental Motor Skills in Kindergarteners

“…Although the literature indicates, in general terms, that the practice of extracurricular physical activities favors FMS (Kokštejn et al, 2017), when the results obtained in different studies are analyzed in detail, it is found that not all FMS are benefited by this type of activity. Thus, for example, there are studies that show that in children as young as those that make up this sample, and also Spanish, only some motor components were benefited by these extracurricular activities (Gil-Madrona et al, 2021;Honrubia-Montesinos et al, 2021). Further research is required to clarify what characteristics should have motor extracurricular experiences to enhance the different FMS.…”