Desempenho coordenativo de crianças entre os 6 e os 10 anos de idade do concelho de Vouzela

Abstract

Motor coordination (MC) is critical to child's development and can be affected by several factors, such as: age, sex, weight status and physical activity. The aim of this study was to analyse the effects of age, sex and body mass index (BMI) and also verify the correlation between physical activity levels and coordinative performance (CP) of Portuguese children. Methodology: the study included 286 children aged 6 to 10 years, 137 ♂ and 149 fem., from Vouzela county schools. To evaluate MC, the battery test KTK (Körperkoordinationstest für kinder - KTK) was used, which was developed by German researchers (Kiphard e Schilling, 1974) and is composed of four items: (1) Balance Bar (BB); (2) Side Jump (SJ); (3) Monopedal Jump (MJ); (4) Platform Transfer (PT). BMI was used to describe the weight status and calculated from weight and height measurements (weight (kg) / height (cm²)). With this index children were divided into three groups: normal weight, overweight and obese. The evaluation of PA was made with accelerometry. In the statistical analysis the following tests were used: descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation), t-test of independent measures and factorial ANOVA and Pearson correlation. Results: Children significantly improved their CP through age. It was also noted that the CP levels found in this study revealed that boys showed higher MC levels than girls in MJ. In addition, with the exception of the SJ, normal weight children demonstrated a higher MC than overweight and obese children in all tests. With respect to PA levels, a positive correlation was not found with the CP. Conclusion: The results point to the importance of detection of low CP levels so that intervention programs can be applied, allowing the children to achieve adequate levels of MC according to their age