1. School Physical Activity Programming and Gross Motor Skills in Children.
- Author
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Burns, Ryan D., You Fu, Hannon, James C., and Brusseau, Timothy A.
- Subjects
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PHYSICAL activity , *MOTOR ability in children , *GROSS motor ability , *PHYSICAL education (Elementary) , *SCHOOLS , *SCHOOL districts , *MOTOR ability , *CHILD development , *CONFIDENCE intervals , *HEALTH education , *HEALTH outcome assessment , *PROBABILITY theory , *STATISTICAL sampling , *INTER-observer reliability , *EVALUATION of human services programs , *DATA analysis software , *DESCRIPTIVE statistics , *INTRACLASS correlation ,RESEARCH evaluation - Abstract
Objective: We examined the effect of a comprehensive school physical activity program (CSPAP) on gross motor skills in children. Methods: Participants were 959 children (1st-6th grade; Mean age = 9.1 ± 1.5 years; 406 girls, 553 boys) recruited from 5 low-income schools receiving a year-long CSPAP intervention. Data were collected at the beginning of the school year and at a 36-week follow-up. Gross motor skills were assessed using the Test for Gross Motor Development (3rd ed.) (TGMD-3) instrument. Multi-level mixed effects models were employed to examine the effect of CSPAP on TGMD-3 scores, testing age and sex as effect modifiers and adjusting for clustering of observations within the data structure. Results: There were statistically significant coefficients for time (β = 8.1, 95% CI [3.9, 12.3], p < .001) and an age × time interaction (β = -1.7, 95% CI [-2.3, -1.1], p < .001) on TGMD-3 total scores. Significant improvements were also seen for locomotor skills and ball skills sub-test scores. Conclusions: Children showed improved gross motor skill scores at the end of the 36-week CSPAP that were modified by age, as younger children displayed greater improvements in TGMD-3 scores compared to older children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2017
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