Background:Motor skills play an important role in daily skills and learning of children. Hence, any disorders in their motor skills cause weaknesses and problems in learning and social skills. Objectives: The current study aimed to compare motor skills between preschool girls and boys in Semnan city, Iran. Results can be used by preschool education authorities to prioritize and focus on learning programs. Patients and Methods:The current descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 91 children (51 girls and 40 boys), with the mean age of 6.4 (SD ± 0.2). Multi-stage sampling method was employed on preschoolers in Semnan city, Iran; and data was analyzed using the LincolnOseretsky motor development scale. Results: Results of the current study showed no significant difference between balance skills and coordination of arm and leg movements in preschool girls and boys, but significant difference was observed between the catcher throwing skills (P < 0.001), objects balance (P < 0.001), jumping skills (P < 0.001), speed and hands fundamental movement skills (P < 0.001), eye-hand coordination (P < 0.001) and general motor skills (P < 0.002). Conclusions: Results of the current study showed that at preschool stage girls had higher performance compared to boys in fine motor skills and at preschool stage boys had significantly higher performance compared to girls in gross motor skills. Hence, it seems to be necessary to train preschool authorities in teaching fine and gross motor skills, considering the gender.

Background: One of the main problems of chronic stroke patients is the inability to move the fingers separately despite the passing of an extended period of time since the onset of the disease. Dexterity is a fine motor skill that allows one to manipulate objects through voluntary movement. Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the fine motor skills of patients with chronic stroke to those of healthy controls. Patients and Methods: This analytic and descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out randomly on 50 patients with chronic stroke with a mean age of 57.8 years suffering for 46 -72 months and on 50 healthy people with a mean age of 51.16 years. Patients did not receive any intervention before or after one week of assessment. The function of both hands of each patient was measured with the nineholepegtest (NHPT) and the box and block test (BBT). Results:The results showed that the mean variation of speed in the BBT test (standard deviation [SD]) in the left hands of the patients (recessive limb) was 57.8 (12.75), greater than in their right hand (dominant limb) (54.76 [8.67]). The rate of speed in healthy people's right hands was 68.58 (8.31), greater than in their left hands (63.5 [8.54]). In addition, the results of the NHPT showed that the stroke patients needed more time to manipulate the objects than the healthy ones. For the NHPT, the mean (SD) of the right hand (dominant limb) patients (4.89) and healthy controls 36.7 (14.5) 21.98, mean (SD) of the left hand (dominant limb) patients (4.45) and 30.4 in healthy subjects (4.09) 24.18 respectively. Independent T-test showed P < 0.05 in all the results obtained, respectively. Conclusions:The results showed that the dexterity fingers of patients suffering from stroke at the final stages of Bronestrum is much closer to the dexterity of healthy controls.