Longitudinal patterns of change in eye-hand coordination in children aged 8-16 years

Enhanced eye-hand coordination (EHC) is associated with greater participation in physical activity. No longitudinal studies have examined the change in throw-catch EHC from childhood to mid-adolescence. We investigated the development of EHC with an object control test from childhood to mid-adolescence in boys and girls. Evaluated at age 8, 10, 12 and 16 years, EHC was measured as the aggregate success rate of a throw and wall-rebound catch test. The test involved 40 attempts of progressive increasing difficulty, as determined by increased distances from a wall and transitions from two-handed to one-handed catches. Outcomes were treated as quasi-binomial and modelled by generalised linear mixed logistic regression analysis. EHC improved with age from childhood to mid-adolescence, although boys were more adept at each age (p<0.001). The patterns of change in EHC with increasing age varied according to the degree of difficulty of the task (p<0.001); throw and two-handed catch proficiency developing earlier than throw and one-handed catch in both sexes. Boys' EHC was better than girls' as early as age 8 years and male proficiency was maintained through to mid-adolescence. The proficiency of throw and two-handed catch rates developed faster than throw and one-handed catch rates for both sexes.