Relationship Between Gross Motor Skills and Inhibitory Control in Preschool Children: A Pilot Study

Jiajia Liu; Yiyan Li; Tang Zhou; Yanhua Lu; Menghao Sang; Longkai Li; Chunyi Fang; Wenwen Hu; Xiaojiao Sun; Minghui Quan; Jinyan Liu

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2022.848230

Relationship Between Gross Motor Skills and Inhibitory Control in Preschool Children: A Pilot Study

Front Hum Neurosci. 2022 Jul 12:16:848230. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.848230. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Jiajia Liu¹, Yiyan Li¹, Tang Zhou¹, Yanhua Lu¹, Menghao Sang¹, Longkai Li¹, Chunyi Fang², Wenwen Hu³, Xiaojiao Sun⁴, Minghui Quan^{1

5}, Jinyan Liu⁶

Affiliations

¹ School of Kinesiology, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China.
² Rehabilitation & Sports Medicine Research Institute of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital, People's Hospital of Hangzhou Medical College, Hangzhou, China.
³ Department of Physical Education, Institute of Disaster Prevention, Langfang, China.
⁴ School of Physical Education and Sport Training, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China.
⁵ Shanghai Frontiers Science Research Base of Exercise and Metabolic Health, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China.
⁶ Department of Physical Education, Donghua University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Purpose: Gross motor skills (GMS) and inhibitory control (IC) which are both development in preschool stage is significant for preschooler to healthy growth. However, the evidence of relationship between them in preschoolers are still insufficient, most of studies only focus on youth. Thus, the aim of this research is to examine the association between GMS and IC in preschool children.

Methods: This cross-sectional study used baseline data from a previous intervention study of preschoolers conducted in 2018. GMS were assessed by using the Test for Gross Motor Development (2nd edition) in preschoolers, which includes two subtests of locomotor and object control skills. Total GMS is calculated from the sum of these two subtests. The Fish Flanker task was used to evaluate both accuracy and reaction time of IC. Multivariate linear regression models were established to analyze the relationships between GMS and IC.

Results: A total of 123 preschool-age children (55 girls, 68 boys) were included in the final analysis. After adjusting for confounders, GMS (β = -8.27 ms, 95%CI: -14.2, -2.34), locomotor (β = -11.2 ms, 95%CI: -21.43, -0.97), and object control skills (β = -12.15 ms, 95%CI: -22.07, -2.23) were all negatively related with reaction time of IC.

Conclusion: There was a significant negative correlation between gross motor skills and the reaction time of inhibitory control in preschool children. Further research is needed to verify this finding in prospective and experimental studies.

Keywords: gross motor skills; inhibitory control; locomotor skills; object control skills; preschool children.