The research was conducted in order to determine the effect of an eight-week agility development program (ADP) in elementary school students.
Materials and methods. 107 fifth grade elementary school ...students from four classes randomly marked as agility development program (ADP) group (n = 55) or control (CON) group (n = 52) took part in the testing. The students had two classes of physical education per week, which is a total of 16 classes in eight weeks. ADP lasting 15 minutes was conducted within the main part of the physical education class. Both groups attended physical education classes, except that the control group had activities without a special agility development program. Two-tailed independent t-test was used to analyze differences in agility between the ADP and the CON and the change in the performance from pre- to posttests between groups. Two-tailed paired t-test was used to analyze changes in agility performance between pre- and posttests within both groups.
Results. Compared with the CON, the ADP group showed significantly better performances (p≤0.05) in Zig-zag test, Illinois Agility Run test, Agility T test and Arrowhead Agility test after the training period, but not in Balsom agility test (p>0.05).
Conclusions. The positive effect of the 8-week agility development program (ADP) on improving agility was determined. Therefore it can be concluded that the implemented program for the development of agility can contribute to the improvement of physical performance and various skills needed for the proper development of children.
INTRODUCTION
Examining motor and cognitive decline in separate models may underestimate their associations.
METHODS
In a single trivariate model, we examined the levels and rates of decline of three ...phenotypes, sensor‐derived total daily physical activity, motor abilities, and cognition in 1007 older adults during 6 years of follow‐up. In 477 decedents, we repeated the model adding fixed terms for indices of nine brain pathologies.
RESULTS
Simultaneous rates of decline of all three phenotypes showed the strongest correlations with shared variance of up to 50%. Brain pathologies explained about 3% of the variance of declining daily physical activity, 9% of declining motor abilities, and 42% of cognitive decline.
DISCUSSION
The rates of declining cognitive and motor phenotypes are strongly correlated and measures of brain pathologies account for only a small minority of their decline. Further work is needed to elucidate the biology underlying correlated cognitive and motor decline in aging adults.
The foundation for the improvement of the quality of each player are their basic skills, but success in wheelchair basketball is considered to mainly depends on the level of specific motor skills ...which represent the end result of work done during a specific training process.The paper aims to outline the used tests for the evaluation of specific motor skills of wheelchair basketball players in papers published between 2008 and 2022. To compile the existing studies the following databases were searched:PubMed, SCIndeks, PEDro, J-GATE, SCIndes, DOAJ and Google Scholar.Research published in the period from 2008 to 2022 was analyzed. The analysis of the compiled studies to evaluate the specific motor skills of wheelchair basketball players resulted in a recommendation for the use of several tests such as the: 20m sprint with ball test, Pickup the ball test, the Lay-up test, the Pass for accuracy test, andthe Free-throw shooting test. Based on the results achieved on these tests, it is possible to perform a selection and monitor the progress of the players, as well as the impact of the applied specific training process on the development of motor skills on which success in wheelchair basketball depends.
The purpose of this study was to determine the level of motor abilities development in blind students and students without visual impairments, as well as to examine whether there are differences in ...motor abilities development between these two groups of participants. The research included 22 blind student (11 girls and 11 boys) and 22 students without visual impairments, aged 11-17 years. The Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT-2) was used to assess motor abilities. The analysis of the results revealed that the motor abilities development of blind students was significantly below average, while students without visual impairments showed an average level of motor abilities development. When comparing the achievements of blind students and students without visual impairments, it was observed that blind students had poorer performance on both the overall motor test and the subtests of bilateral coordination, upper limb coordination, and balance. On the other hand, students without visual impairments achieved good results on all tested subtests.
Physical education plays an important role in developing motor abilities, skills and competence in children. Main objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of physical education curriculum by ...assessing in 9 th grade school- children: (1) abdominal muscle strength; (2) lower back muscle strength; (3) upper limbs muscle strength; (4) lower limbs muscle strength; (5) explosive leg power; and (6) flexibility of the lower back and hamstring muscles, at the beginning, and at the end of the school term. Basic mathematical and appropriate statistical methods were used in order to calculate descriptive statistical parameters, Skewness and Kurtosis values, as well as Kolmogorov- Smirnov test, were used in order to examine whether data have a normal distribution, and a Student’s t-test was applied in order to test if there is a statistically significant difference in children’s motor abilities between the beginning and the end of the school term. For this purpose, we used Microsoft Office Excel 2010. At the end of the second school term, children in 9 th grade have shown better results in all assessed variables, meaning they have increased motor ability levels after 4 months of applying specific exercises within the thematic plan of the physical education curriculum, which leads to the conclusion that physical education curriculum allows us to introduce effective tasks in increasing strength, explosive power and flexibility in 9 th grade school children.
•Developmental and conceptual difference between symbolic and non-symbolic basic numerical skills.•Symbolic basic numerical skills (number line and magnitude comparison) are related to executive ...functions.•Non-symbolic skills are related to motor skills.•Non-symbolic number line is related to fine motor skills.•Non-symbolic magnitude comparison is related to gross motor skills.
The aim of the current study was to explore individual differences in basic numerical skills in a normative sample of 151 kindergarteners (mean age = 6.45 years). Whereas previous research claims a substantial link between executive functions and basic numerical skills, motor abilities have been put forward to explain variance in numerical skills. Regarding the current study, these two assumptions have been combined, revealing interesting results. Namely, executive functions (inhibition, switching, and visuospatial working memory) were found to relate to symbolic numerical skills, and motor skills (gross and fine motor skills) showed a significant correlation to nonsymbolic numerical skills. Suggesting that motor skills and executive functions are associated with basic numerical skills could lead to potential avenues for interventions in certain disorders or disabilities such as nonverbal learning disability, developmental dyscalculia, and developmental coordination disorder.
The aim of this study was to determine the differences between healthy-weight and overweight 5-6-year-old preschool children in fine and gross motor skills and cognitive abilities. There were 91 ...subjects, preschool children (41 boys and 50 girls), who participated in this cross-sectional study. The body mass index (BMI) was calculated based on measures of body height and body mass, and WHO cutoff points were used for the assessment of the children's nutrition status. Fine motor abilities were determined using two Bruininks-Oseretsky (BOT-2) subtests, and gross motor skills are determined by the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD-2), while cognitive abilities were tested by the School Maturity Test (TZŠ+). Based on an independent-samples
-test, a difference in two out of three variables of gross motor skills was determined: manipulative skills and total gross motor skills between healthy-weight and overweight children, while in fine motor abilities and cognitive abilities there was no difference between these two groups. Although significant differences were found only in gross motor skills between healthy and overweight preschool children but not in fine motor skills and cognitive abilities, further longitudinal studies are required to understand the mechanisms of this, including the possible role of psychological factors.
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