Estudo do nível de desenvolvimento da coordenação motora da população escolar (6 a 10 anos de idade) da região autónoma dos Açores

Motor coordination level of school aged children (6-10 years) of the Azores Islands The purposes of this investigation were: (1) to characterize the developmental state of motor coordination in primary school children; (2) to identify differences between children of both genders; and to (3) identify the presence of insufficient motor coordination. Sample comprises 3742 children of both genders with 6 to 10 years of age. Motor coordination was evaluated with the test battery “Korperkoordinationstest fur Kinder” (KTK). The battery comprises four tests: backward balance (ER), jumping sideways (SL), hopping on one leg (SM), and shifting platforms (TL). Factorial ANOVA (gender*age) was used to identify differences between boys and girls in each age. Discriminant function was used to test the presence of multivariate profiles of motor coordination. It was found a performance increment with age in both genders in all items of test battery, and that boys had higher mean values than girls in all ages and in all items of the test battery, but in SL. Mean values of performance in all test items were lower than in other Portuguese and foreigner samples. Most of the children of both genders in all ages had a motor quotient in the interval of low coordination and coordination disorder. In both genders was noted a tendency for children of one age to have a lower profile of motor coordination than the one expected for their own age. These results showed that children of all ages had a low development of motor coordination.