preschoolers

Motor Skills Performance and Pedometer-Determined Physical Activity in Young Children.

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This study examined the association between motor skills and pedometer-determined physical activity in a sample of preschool children. One hundred and seventeen children (61 boys, 56 girls) 5-6 years old (M=67.18 months, SD=3.802) who live in Agrinio, Aitoloakarnania Greece, volunteered to participate in the current study. A trained researcher administered the measurements for the assessment of children’s motor skills by using the Short Form of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency-2 (BOTMP-SF). Physical activity was assessed by OMRON HJ-720IT pedometers. Based on performance in BOTMP-SF, participants were categorized into three groups, namely, “below average”, “average”, and “above average”. The results showed a statistically significant association between motor skills performance and steps.day-1 (Kruskal-Wallis x2=34.23, p<.001). Comparisons between motor skills categories showed significant differences in steps.day-1 between the "below average" and "average" groups (Mann-Whitney U=50, p<.001) and between "below average" and "above average" groups (Mann-Whitney U=7, p<.001). Results showed that increased levels of children's physical activity encourage and positively affect motor development.

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Pedometer determined physical activity of preschool children, during and after school.

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The purpose of this study was to describe the sex-specific patterns of preschooler’s daily pedometer-determined physical activity (PA) during (DS) and after (AS) school hours. Τhe random sample of the one hundred and forty four children (71 boys and 73 girls, age = 5 – 6 yr), who attend the kindergartens in Greece, wore pedometers for four days (3 school days and 1 weekend day) and recorded steps during school and after school hours. For the statistical analysis of the data, ANOVAs repeated measures were used. From the results gender seems to be the main effect (F1.142 = 14.937, p < .05) on children's PA. Βoys took significantly (F1.143 =11.193, p=. 001) more steps per day than girls: 5.735 ± 2.820 vs 4.337 ± 2.159 during school. Furthermore, boys took more steps per day than girls: 11.353 ± 5.319 vs 9.586 ± 4.254 steps per day. Consequently, these data give an understanding of the sex-specific patterns of preschoolers' daily pedometer-determined physical activity (PA) during (DS) and after (AS) school hours.

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Relationship between rhythmic ability and type of motor activities in preschool children

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The purpose of the present study was to investigate the rhythmic ability of pre-school children engaging in motor activities accompanied or not by music. A total of 180 children (90 boys and 90 girls) at the age of 5±0.5 were randomly selected from kindergartens of Magnesia area-Greece to participate in the study. The High/Scope Rhythmic Competence Αnalysis Τest (Weikart, 1989) was used for the evaluation of rhythmic ability using 2 testing tempos: 120 and 130 beats. The 3-way ANOVA revealed that all children performed significantly better in lower tempo (p< .05) and girls performed better than boys (p< .05). The test scores were significantly different among the three activity groups (p< .05) with the best performance shown on the group of motor activities accompanied by music and then the group of motor activities without music. Girls in the first group (activities accompanied by music) significantly surpassed boys of the same group in both testing tempos. In conclusion, motor abilities accompanied by music, play an important role to the development of rhythmic ability. More research is needed on the effects of music on the development of children’s rhythmic abilities taking into account gender and maybe former movement repertoire.

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