Motor Skill Improvement in Preschoolers: How Effective Are Activity Cards?

Sports

Lars Donath¹  Katharina Imhof²  Ralf Roth²  Lukas Zahner² 

[1] Department of Sport, Exercise and Health, University of Basel, Birsstrasse 320B, CH-4052 Basel, Switzerland;

关键词: kindergarten;    motor skill;    intervention;    preschool children;    exercise;   

DOI  :  10.3390/sports2040140

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Strategies to early develop and implement motor skill promotion in preschoolers are lacking. Thus, we examined the effects of a card-based exercise promotion program in a kindergarten setting. 214 preschool children (5.5 ± 0.6 y, range 4.2–6.7 y) were examined in the present intervention study. Body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference were measured. Children were randomly assigned to the KIDZ-Box^® physical activity intervention program (INT: n = 107) or the control group (CON: n = 107). Children were trained daily for 15 min over 7 month at the preschool for agility, balance, endurance and jump performance, employing the card-based KIDZ-Box^® media package. At pre- and post-testing, dynamic balance, jump and agility performance were tested. Cross-sectionally, agility testing differed between sexes (p = 0.01) and BMI (p = 0.02). Trends towards a significant association were found between BMI and side-to-side jumping (p = 0.1) and beam balancing (p = 0.05). Relevant interventional effects favoring the intervention group were slightly found for agility (p = 0.04, η_p² = 0.02) and moderately for side-to-side jumping (p < 0.001, η_p² = 0.08). Balance performance did not relevantly improve. As jumping cards have been used frequently by the teachers, jumping improvements are plausible. The activity cards are feasibly applicable but should be employed with more structure during longer training sessions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.