Lateral preference and motor coordination

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of hand and foot preferences, sex and age on motor coordination (MC) in children. We evaluated the hand preference (HP) through the Card-reaching task (Carlier et al., 2006, adapted from Bishop et al., 1996) and the Dutch Handedness Questionnaire (Van Strien, 2002). Foot preference (FP) was evaluated inviting the subjects to kicking a ball (Hart & Gabbard, 1996). We applied the Movement Assessment Battery for Children MC test (Henderson & Sugden, 1992) to 319 children (7.96 ± 2.38 y). The results show that right handers have better performance on manual dexterity (MD) and ball skills (BS) with their preferred hand (PH). Left-handers perform better with their non-preferred hand (NPH) in MD and have a better static balance (SB) with your non-preferred foot (NPF). Girls had better MD with NPH and better SB with NPF. We observed a better MD performance with PH and NPH, BS with NPH and SB with the PF and NPF in the younger children. PH×Age and Mp×Age×Sex interactions were also verified. It can be concluded that the laterality, sex and age have significant effects on children MC.