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Parental influences on parent-reported motor skills in young children with developmental disabilities
Byungmo Ku1, Megan MacDonald2, Bridget Hatfield2
1Division of Natural, Physical, and Healthl Sciences, Vanguard University of Southern California, Costa Mesa, CA, USA.
Insights
Parents can improve motor skills in young children with developmental disabilities (DDs) by encouraging physical activity (PA) and acting as role models. Parental support for PA is linked to children's PA, which in turn enhances motor skill development.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Developmental Psychology
- Motor Control
Background:
- Young children with developmental disabilities (DDs) frequently exhibit motor skill deficits.
- The role of parental involvement in the motor skill development of children with DDs requires further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between parental physical activity (PA) support, explicit modeling, and children's PA with motor skills in young children with DDs.
- To examine the mediating role of children's PA in the relationship between parental factors and motor skills.
Main Methods:
- Cross-sectional study involving 135 parents of children aged 5-7 years with DDs.
- Online questionnaire assessing parental PA support, explicit PA modeling, children's PA behavior, and motor skill variables.
- Pathway analysis to determine the relationships between variables.
Main Results:
- Parental tangible support and explicit modeling were significantly associated with increased PA behaviors in young children with DDs.
- Children's PA behaviors were positively associated with their motor skill development.
- Parental PA support and modeling indirectly influenced motor skills through children's PA.
Conclusions:
- Parental engagement in supporting and modeling physical activity (PA) can enhance motor skill development in young children with developmental disabilities (DDs).
- Promoting PA behaviors in children with DDs may be a viable strategy for improving their motor skills.
- Parents serve as crucial indirect facilitators of motor skill acquisition through their influence on children's PA.
Background:
Young children with developmental disabilities (DDs) often experience motor skill deficits. Although parents play an important role in developing their children's motor skills, the association between parents of young children with DDs and those children's motor skills has not been widely studied.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to cross-sectionally examine the pathway by which parental physical activity (PA) support, explicit modeling, and child's PA are associated with motor skills in young children with DDs.
Method:
One hundred and thirty-five parents of young children (5-7 years) with DDs completed an online questionnaire which included questions about parental PA support, parental explicit PA modeling, children's PA behavior and children's motor skill variables.
Results:
Pathway analysis was conducted to examine the pathways between parental tangible support and explicit modeling and motor skills in young children with DDs. The pathway analysis indicated that parental tangible support and explicit modeling are significantly associated with PA behaviors in young children with DDs, which in turn, are associated with their motor skills.
Conclusions:
The results from this study suggest that young children with DDs may acquire motor skills by participating in PA. In addition, parents of young children with DDs can indirectly be associated with the motor skills of their children by supporting PA and becoming a PA role model. For parents of young children with DDs, increasing the PA behaviors of their children maybe away to improve their children's motor skills.
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