Author(s): Koji Shimatani, Yoshifumi Tanaka, Masaki Hasegawa, Sadaaki Oki, Hiroshi Sekiya
It has been noted that the symptoms of children with developmental disorders (DD) include problems such as high frequency of accidentally bumping into objects or people. However, as of yet there has been no clarification of the characteristics of gross motor abilities in children with DD. The purpose of this study was to clarify those characteristics by comparing the gross motor abilities of children with DD to that of normal children. Participants were 5- and 6-year-old children, of whom 9 had DD and 9 were normal. For testing, we used the motor ability tests for young children designed by Sugihara et al. [1]. We tested 6 skills, including 25 m runs and standing long-jumps to evaluate quickness, tennis-ball throws, repetitive jump-overs, and ball catches to evaluate coordination, and continuous body-support to evaluate endurance. When we compared children with DD to normal children, no significant differences were observed in any of the motor skills tested. Gross motor abilities of children with DD were equal to those of the normal children in terms of quickness, coordination, and endurance. Therefore, we infer that the high frequency of accidentally bumping into objects or people by children with DD cannot be attributed simply to underdeveloped gross motor abilities.