Relationship between Motor Skills and Social Skills in Preschool Children

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the relationship between motor skills and social skills of preschool children regarding to age, gender, and body mass indexes. A total of 160 typically developing preschool children from the 5-6 age groups participated in the study. The families of the children gave consent forms to participate in the study. The Test of Gross Motor Development, 3rd Edition tool (TGMD-III), and Preschool Social Skills Assessment Tool (PSSAT) were used in the study. We performed frequency and percentage analysis for descriptive statistics on the demographic characteristics of the participants. The researchers estimated the minimum, maximum, mean, and standard deviation values of the scales used in the study and the sub-dimensions of these scales. Skewness and kurtosis values for normality and applied Shapiro-Wilk (Normal Fit Test) were examined. We also calculated Cronbach's alpha values for the validity-reliability analysis of the Preschool Social Skills Assessment Tool. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and t-tests for gender and age comparisons, and Kruskal-Wallis analyses were employed to examine body mass indexes. We performed Pearson Correlation analysis to determine the relationship between motor skills and social skills. The result of the research showed that the motor skills of preschool children showed a significant difference according to the gender of the children (p<0.05). Preschool children were exposed to a significant difference according to children's ages in terms of locomotor skills and total motor skills (p<0.01). The social skills of these children revealed a statistically significant difference in line with their gender (p<0.01). On the other hand, there was no statistically significant difference according to the age of the children (p>0.05). The body mass index of preschool children's ground motor and social skills did not show a statistically significant difference according to their Body Mass Index (BMI) levels (p>0.05). Our study could not identify a meaningful relationship between motor skills and the children's social skills (p>0.05).