Poster Presentation

Paper ID : 1603-12THCONG

Department of Motor Behavior, Sport Sciences Research Institute, Tehran, Iran

Crossing the body’s midline is an important developmental skill needed for many everyday tasks such as writing, reaching towards your foot to put on a shoe and sock with both hands and hitting a ball with a bat. According to the literature some exercises improve coordination of the left and right sides of children’s brain. In this study we aimed to investigate the effect of midline crossing activities on motor development of preschoolers. 20 preschoolers (Tehran, Iran) were selected from a kindergarten and divided into two 10-person experimental and control groups. Test of Gross Motor Development was used to assess the motor development. Midline crossing games were insert in ordinary active play classes for experimental group who played for 8 weeks (3 sessions per week).The control group played in their ordinary active play sessions during this period. At the end of 8 week, pretests were re-performed in both experimental and control groups. Data were analyzed using descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential (analysis of covariance, Shapiro-Wilk test and Leven test) statistics using the statistical package of SPSS (version 17) at a significance level of 0.05. The results showed that combining midline crossing games with ordinary active games classes significantly affected running , jumping and galloping skills from the locomotor subscale and catching and throwing skills from object control subscale of Gross Motor Development Test (p<0.05). Therefore teachers of kindergartens and preschools are recommended to use this mix method to improve motor skills of children.

midline crossing, motor development, children

midline crossing; Motor development; Children

Motion Behavior