Abstract
Cognitive development is related with central nervous system maturation and plays a crucial role for the definition of executive functions such as movement imagination, movement planning and problem-solving. In particular,executive functions are required during complex interactions between players/environment and are also fundamental for motor skills coordination. Although the complex interaction between cognitive and physical outcomes was recognized by several authors, few studies examined the magnitude of the relation between executive functions and motor development according to different stages of cognitive maturation. Thus the aim was the assessment of the relationships between motor skills coordination and executive functions in children with different cognitive level. Ninety healthy male participants were involved in the study where children affected by Down syndrome were, also, recruited. The participants were divided into three groups according to classification of Piaget: concrete, formal operational groups and Down syndrome individuals. Executive functions were assessed using a validated computerized battery tests while motor skills was evaluated using the Korperkoordinations Testfur Kinder. Analysis of variance by ranks (Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric test) and Mann-Whitney U pairwise comparisons with Dunn’s correction for multiple contrasts were applied to assess the differences concerning thetwo kinds of outcome. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was used to calculate the correlation between physical performance and the outcomes of the cognitive tests. A Spearman correlation was used to analyze the data when the assumption of normality was violated. The three groups showed differences in both executive functions and motor coordination outcomes. The highest number of significant correlations was found in the formal operational group (correlation coefficients ranging between -0.999 and -0.520, and between 0.970 and 0.759, all p values < 0.05) while a small number of correlations were found in the concrete operational group(correlation coefficients equal to -0.527, -0.461, -0.436 and 0.468, all p values < 0.05). No correlations between executive function and motor coordination were found in Down syndrome group. High executive function seems to affect the coordination skills.
Highlights
The cognitive theory of the human development (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969) defined the stages of cognitive outcomes during the growth path on the basis of the meaning given to the action and on the basis of the adaptive strategies resulting from the interaction between individual and the environment (Beilin & Fireman, 1999)
The results of our study revealed a significant relation between high level of motor skills coordination (MSC) and EF only for the formal operational group and only a similar trend for the concrete operational children
New insights are pointed out and show that Piaget’s stages of the cognitive development can be applied into practice only in children having a regular psycho-motor development, whereas in Down Syndrome (DS) children no relationship exists between cognitive functions and coordinative abilities such as measured during testing protocol (Oberer et al, 2017)
Summary
The cognitive theory of the human development (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969) defined the stages of cognitive outcomes during the growth path on the basis of the meaning given to the action and on the basis of the adaptive strategies resulting from the interaction between individual and the environment (Beilin & Fireman, 1999). More precisely: 1) the sensorimotor stage (age between 0 and 2 years) involves a progressive exploration and assimilation of external reality through the use of senses; 2) the preoperational stage (age between 2 and 6 years) is characterized by a selective attention that allows the progressive self-recognition and the consciousness about differences from the others even if the ability to project the own image in the virtual space where the action will take place is still poor (Garon et al, 2008); 3) the concrete operational stage (age between 7 and years), instead, is characterized by mental connections between words and movements that improve the ability to use the conceptual and the anticipatory thinking of an action; 4) the formal operational stage (age between and 18 years) is the period of life when the individual accomplishes inferential reasoning skills, conceptual thinking and a systematic approach to the problems/task, including motor tasks (Kushner et al, 2015).
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