Motor coordination in children: determinants, screening and intervention

There is little doubt that a large number of children suffer from problems performing movements, and that these problems have a huge impact on many aspects of their lives. However, there are issues surrounding the identification and measurement of these difficulties. Chapter 2 of this thesis explores this in a large group of children (n=448 children, 4-11 years old), and shows that there is only limited association between children’s functional motor performance, performance on a traditional measure of motor activities, and their performance in real life situations. The measure of sensorimotor functional performance was then used to explore relations that had previously been linked to motor ability on the basis of activity measures. In Chapter 3, the links between sensorimotor function and obesity were explored in a prospective cohort of 820 4-5 year old children. No relation was found at this age. Chapter 4 examined the relation between sensorimotor control and academic attainment, in a cross-sectional sample of 381 children in primary school (age 5-11). A relation was observed between sensorimotor control and school attainment levels for mathematics, reading and writing, indicating a possible route for intervention. Building on these results, one method that has the potential to target these sensorimotor functions is the use of haptic robotic devices. This was explored in Chapter 5 in a cross-over intervention study with 51 children aged 5-11years. However, no transfer of benefit could be seen to the sensorimotor tasks. Therefore, an alternative method of intervention was explored in Chapter 6, with the aim to create an intervention to target children with handwriting difficulties. Results from the feasibility study, implemented with 515 children across 10 primary schools, suggested that with a few alterations interventions could be run autonomously in schools