Setting up girls for success in fundamental motor skills: The role of balance in 8-10 year olds

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between postural control and fundamental motor skills in girls. An observational cross-sectional study was conducted in 47 girls, aged 8–10 years. Postural control (postural sway centre of pressure) was evaluated during tandem stance, leading with dominant and non-dominant limbs with eyes open and closed, using an AMTI force platform. Fundamental motor skills were assessed using the Test of Gross Motor Development 2nd Edition, examining total, locomotor and object control scores. Data were analysed using linear regression, adjusted for body mass index percentile and household income. For locomotor skills, significant relationships were found with a number of postural sway outcomes for adjusted and unadjusted analyses (r − 0.287 to r − 0.425, p ≤ 0.042). Total motor skill score was significantly related to postural sway in the tandem dominant eyes closed condition for unadjusted and adjusted analyses (r ≥ −0.294, p ≤ 0.04). In conclusion, our findings indicate that postural control may be important for fundamental motor skill proficiency and movement quality in pre-adolescent girls, particularly for locomotor skills. Our study provides evidence supporting the clinical practice of assessing postural control in girls presenting with motor skill deficits.

KEYWORDS:

• Postural sway
• locomotor skills
• object control skills
• children
• stability

Institutional review board approval

The study protocol was approved by the University of South Australia Human Research Ethics Committee (protocol number 030898). All participants and their guardians provided written informed consent.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to J Brinsley for assisting with data collection/reduction.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

Tsiros (conceptualization/methodology, data curation/analysis, investigation, funding acquisition, project administration, writing- original draft/reviewing/editing, final approval of manuscript), Shahrin (data curation, investigation, writing -reviewing/editing, final approval of manuscript), Mackintosh (conceptualization/methodology, funding acquisition, data interpretation, writing-reviewing/editing, final approval of manuscript), Thewlis (conceptualization/methodology, investigation, data curation/analysis, funding acquisition, project administration, writing- original draft/reviewing/editing, final approval of manuscript).

Data availability statement

Data are currently not available due to privacy/ethical restrictions.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the AMP foundation (Grant number n/a). Funders had no input into any aspects of the study (design, data collection, analyses, interpretation, manuscript preparation). DT receives salary support from the National Health and Medical Research Council through a Career Development Fellowship (ID: 1126229).