Relationship Between Motor Skills, Balance, and Physical Activity in Children with CHARGE Syndrome

Abstract

Introduction: Children with CHARGE syndrome often show delays in balance and motor skills due to multisensory impairments. Research also suggests that children with CHARGE syndrome have fewer opportunities to engage in physical activity. However, little research has examined the relationship among all of these variables. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between balance, motor skills, and physical activity. Methods: Participants consisted of 37 children with CHARGE syndrome aged 3–16 years who could walk independently. Parents of each child with CHARGE syndrome completed a demographics questionnaire and the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Children or Adolescents. Their child completed the Mini-BEST balance test and five motor skills (run, jump, slide, kick, and throw) from the Test of Gross Motor Development II. Results: Results indicate that anticipatory control had significant positive correlations with all five motor skills, sensory orientation with three motor skills, and reactive postural control and dynamic gait with two motor skills. Running was the only variable that had a significant positive correlation with physical activity. Discussion: The findings indicate that balance, especially anticipatory control, plays an important role in fundamental motor skills of children with CHARGE syndrome. There is also a strong connection between physical activity and running competence for this population; however, since this is based on a correlational analysis, the direction of the relationship is unclear. Implications for practitioners: Physical education teachers should work with students with CHARGE syndrome on increasing balance and motor skill performance to give them the competence and confidence to engage in physical activity. Moreover, parents can help by engaging in physical activity with their child at an early age and seeking out additional physical activity opportunities for their child outside of the physical education and school setting.

Motor Competence in Children with CHARGE Syndrome

“…Even when these children return from their medical leave, they are often excused from physical education for extended periods of time (Hilgenbrinck et al, 2020). These long absences from physical education and movement opportunities, which would typically improve their gross motor skill performance, may add to existing challenges with balance (Butterfield & Ersing, 1988;Haibach and Lieberman, 2013;Haibach-Beach et al, 2020;Perreault et al, 2020) and vestibular function (Möller, 2011) if they are not provided adapted and individualized services. These balance and vestibular challenges exacerbate the impact of the multiple surgeries and prolonged hospital stays.…”

“…Early development in infants and children with CHARGE syndrome has revealed that they walk approximately 25 months later than children without disabilities (Dammeyer, 2012). Age of walking is an important milestone in motor development as it has been negatively associated with motor competence measures such as balance, throwing, running, sliding, and kicking (Perreault et al, 2020), and it is also associated with other important developmental outcomes, such as executive function (Hartshorne et al, 2007), adaptive behaviors (Salem- Hartshorne & Jacob, 2005), and language delays (Dammeyer, 2012).…”

Affordances for Motor Development in the Home Environment for Young Children with and without CHARGE Syndrome

“…Specifically, we examined young children with CHARGE syndrome, the leading cause of congenital deafblindness [12]. Motor development is often significantly delayed in children with CHARGE syndrome due not only to sensory impairments, but motor impairments as well as environmental constraints, such as long hospital stays [23,24].…”

“…The findings revealed that children without disabilities were in childcare significantly more than children with CHARGE syndrome. These results are likely due to the medical needs of children with CHARGE syndrome at an early age [23,24]. Most daycares are typically not equipped to attend to the additional medical, functional, and communication needs of children with CHARGE syndrome.…”

“…One reason for this late onset for independent walking is that children with CHARGE syndrome experience more balance issues compared to their peers without disabilities [21,22]. This delayed walking can have drastic impacts on other gross motor skills, such as locomotor and object control skills [23,24], which are critical for engaging in many physical activities.…”