The Associations of SUNRISE Product-Oriented Gross Motor Skills With Process-Oriented TGMD-3

Fundamental motor skills are important markers of child development, yet gold standard measurement of these skills may be infeasible in large surveillance studies. The SUNRISE study examines movement behaviors and fundamental motor skills among an international sample of preschool-aged children. This study aimed to evaluate the associations of three product-oriented gross motor assessments used in the SUNRISE study with the gold standard process-oriented assessment, the Test of Gross Motor Development-Third edition (TGMD-3). Sixty-three children (4.8 ± 0.8 years; 57% girls) completed both process- and product-oriented assessments concurrently and were included in the final analysis. Spearman correlations and regressions were used. Spearman correlations indicated significant weak to strong relationships between SUNRISE skills (individual and composite) and TGMD-3 individual skills. Furthermore, SUNRISE performance, controlling for age, was significantly (p < .001) associated with TGMD-3 locomotor skills (35.8% variance) and total TGMD-3 scores (44.8% variance). SUNRISE motor skill performance, controlling for age and sex, was significantly associated (p = .001) with TGMD-3 ball skills (39.4% variance). Findings suggest a moderate positive relationship between the SUNRISE assessments and the TGMD-3, providing preliminary evidence to interpret that the SUNRISE assessment performance is similar to performance on the TGMD-3.