Author(s): Ting Liu, Michelle Hamilton and Sean Smith
Objective: To investigate both fine and gross motor proficiency in preschool children enrolled in Head Start in comparison to their age-matched typically developing peers. Methods: Thirty-seven children from a local Head Start program and 37 typically developing children participated in this study. Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 (MABC-2) was used to assess children's fine and gross motor performance in manual dexterity, aiming and catching, balance, and the child's overall motor performance. A one-way MANOVA was used to analyze the group differences on MABC-2 percentile scores for each subtest and the overall performance with the alpha level set at p <. 05. Results: The results revealed that the Head Start children performed significantly poorly than their age-matched typically developing children on balance, F (1,72)= 26.032, p<.01, and the total percentile score, F(1,72)=10.455, p<. 01. Conclusions and implication: It is suggested that future educators should design interventions with broader subset of skills to maximize motor proficiency for the economically disadvantaged preschool children to prevent long-term negative consequences associated with motor delays.
