Correlation between Gross Motor Activities and Hand Writing Skills in Elementary School Children

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the relation between developmental gross motor activities and hand writing skills in elementary school aged children. One hundred normal Egyptian children of both sexes were selected out of 600 from three private national elementary language schools, their ages ranged from 48-72 months old. Fifty four children were in grade senior kinder (group A) and 46 children were in grade one (group B). Each child in both groups was evaluated individually by using Peabody Developmental Motor Scale (PDMS-2) to determine the level of gross motor activities and the McMaster Handwriting Assessment Protocol (MHAP) to detect level of hand writing skills including speed of near point copying, speed of dictation, hand dominance and type of pencil grasp. The results of the study revealed significant positive correlation between gross motor quotient and speed of near point copying in both groups: Group A (n = 54, r = 0.664, p = 0.000), group B (n = 46, r = 0.769, p = 0.000) and significant positive correlation between gross motor quotient and speed of dictation in both groups: Group A (n = 54, r = 0.621, p = 0.000), group B (n = 46, r = 0.667, p = 0.000). Results also revealed non-significant positive correlation between gross motor quotient and hand dominance in both groups:group A (n = 54, r = 0.440, p = 0.842), group B (n = 46, r = 0.505, p = 0.617) and non-significant positive correlation between gross motor quotient and type of grasp in both groups: Group A (n = 54, r = 0.782, p = 0.09), group B (n = 46, r = 0.759, p = 0.171). It can be concluded that in the selected age range, gross motor skills were strongly correlated to speed of hand writing either in near point copying or dictation and not correlated to hand dominance or type of pencil grasp.

Crosstalk between Gross and Fine Motor Domains during Late Childhood: The Influence of Gross Motor Training on Fine Motor Performances in Primary School Children

“…On the other hand, fine motor control is not classically defined by different subsets of skills, and was used in this study as an output measure. Furthermore, other studies have already compared a different number of tasks between gross and fine motor training tests [9,[13][14][15]17,30]. Nonetheless, it is possible that the lower correlation and heterogeneity of results we found in the gross motor assessment among grades could be due to the higher request of motor variability [59].…”

“…General development of motor skills undergoes major improvements during the formative years of childhood (i.e., 5-11 years of age) due to the maturation of the central and peripheral nervous system and locomotor system [8]. Research has shown that during child development, gross and fine motor competencies appear to have some correlation [9][10][11][12][13][14]. In fact, it was suggested that specific gross motor activities could involve fine motor adjustments (e.g., ball dribbling and handling, ball-striking with a bat, throwing at a target, skipping through a hopscotch-type pattern) [10,11].…”

“…Previous studies have investigated the relationship between gross and fine motor skills during various steps of children's school education, obtaining contentious results when comparing gross and fine individual performance measures [9,[13][14][15][16][17]. For instance, 2 of 16 Cameron et al [9] and Oberer et al [13] showed moderate correlation between gross and fine motor skills.…”

“…Similarly, Cameron and colleagues' investigation [9] also reported a positive correlation in younger children (aged 3-4 years), assessing gross motor skills using balance, imitation, and hop and skip tasks, whereas fine motor skills were evaluated using spatial organization tasks (e.g., building a tower with bricks and drawing tasks). Furthermore, Dayem et al [14] showed that an even higher correlation between gross and fine motor skills occurred in children aged 4-6 years, assessing gross motor skills using stationary, locomotor, and object manipulation tasks, while fine motor skills were assessed using a writing task. Conversely, other authors disagree with the positive correlation between gross and fine motor skills [15][16][17].…”

School-Time Movement Behaviors and Fundamental Movement Skills in Preschoolers: An Isotemporal Reallocation Analysis

“…Indeed, a focus on manipulative skills is a key consideration in the context of the preschool population. Writing ability in preschoolers first develops as a gross motor activity, where finer movements are controlled by the forearm with power and strength in the shoulder and elbow pivots being central to control of movement (El-Dayem et al., 2015). This is strikingly similar to the developmental process in acquiring overarm throwing skill (Langendorfer et al., 2011), and prior studies have reported significant relationships between gross motor skills and handwriting skills in 5-6 year olds (El-Dayem et al., 2015).…”