Abstract
The life-span approach to development provides a theoretical framework to examine the general principles of life-long development. This study aims to investigate motor performance across the life span. It also aims to investigate if the correlations between motor tasks increase with aging. A cross-sectional design was used to describe the effects of aging on motor performance across age groups representing individuals from childhood to young adult to old age. Five different motor tasks were used to study changes in motor performance within 338 participants (7–79 yrs). Results showed that motor performance increases from childhood (7–9) to young adulthood (19–25) and decreases from young adulthood (19–25) to old age (66–80). These results are mirroring results from cognitive research. Correlation increased with increasing age between two fine motor tasks and two gross motor tasks. We suggest that the findings might be explained, in part, by the structural changes that have been reported to occur in the developing and aging brain and that the theory of Neural Darwinism can be used as a framework to explain why these changes occur.
Highlights
The perspective of life span development provides a framework to study how and why individual changes occur across the whole life-course
This study aimed to explore whether the patterns of lifespan development established by cognitive research are evident in the motor domain
Motor performance across the life-span Motor performance increased from childhood (7–9) to young adulthood (19–25) and decreased from young adulthood (19–25) to old age (66–80), mirroring the results from cognitive studies [6,38]
Summary
The perspective of life span development provides a framework to study how and why individual changes occur across the whole life-course. Baltes and Lindenberger [1] describes that the perspective of life span development aims to ‘‘obtain knowledge about general principles of life-long development, about inter-individual differences and similarities in development, as well as about the degree and conditions of individual plasticity or modifiability of development’’ (p.611). To delineate general principles of life-span development, longitudinal studies that measure the same individuals from childhood to old age is preferable. Such longitudinal studies are time consuming and the few that exist often follow individuals from young adulthood to old age [2].
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