Abstract
Introduction : Many studies on motor development in young children have been done using quantitative data obtained from motor performance tests. To understand motor development in young children, the development of the actual motor pattern producing the performance should be investigated and evaluated. The purposes of this study were to examine the development of seven different fundamental motor patterns (patterns of running, jumping, throwing, catching, ball bouncing, forward rolling, and moving on a balance beam) using an observational evaluation method, and to compare the acquisition situations of the fundamental motor patterns of young children in the recent year and in 1985.
Method : The subjects were 154children (81boys and 73girls) from three to five years of age in 2007, and 123children (59boys and 64girls) in 1985. Their fundamental movements were recorded by video camera and evaluated by an observational method using five typical developmental stages of the motor patterns in each movement. Based on the results of analysis of these seven fundamental motor patterns, an index to understand the development of fundamental movement in early childhood overall was established as a “motor pattern development score”.
Results : It was shown that the motor patterns of the seven fundamental movements in recent young children remained at an immature movement development stage, such as pattern 1 and pattern 2. A significant increase was seen with age in both the individual motor pattern scores for the seven movements and the motor pattern development score. Moreover, it was shown that the motor pattern scores of resent young children were below the scores of young children in 1985 in the seven kinds of movements in both boys and girls.
Conclusion : The results of this study, showed that the acquisition of the fundamental motor patterns in resent young children was at a lower developmental stage than that of young children in 1985. It was also shown that the acquisition of fundamental movements in resent five-years-olds was similar to that of three-years-olds in 1985.
