Investigation of the impact of Covid-19 pandemic in motor and visuomotor performance of Brazilian schoolchildren

Abstract

Motor skills are important for building autonomy in daily life activities and school activities, being acquired through lived experiences and neurocognitive maturation. However, with the pandemic, there was a period of social restrictions. With the COVID-19 pandemic, Brazilian schoolchildren stopped attending school in person from March 2020 to July 2021. The effects of this change are still largely unknown, as the school is the main means of socialization, communication and to practice motor activities for many children. Therefore, this study aimed investigate, correlate and find predictors of gross and fine motor proficiencies and visual perception between pre- and post-pandemic schoolchildren. This was a cross-sectional study with a convenience sample. Forty schoolchildren participated in this study, being divided into groups GI (20 schoolchildren, from the 1st and 2nd grades, evaluated after remote teaching); GII (20 schoolchildren, paired with GI, in relation to sex and chronological age, being evaluated before the Pandemic). They underwent the procedures of motor Proficiency and visual perception development test. GI showed lower performance when compared to GII for motor and visual variables. No correlation was found between the motor and visual variables. Regression analysis explained 86.5% to 98.7% of the variance of motor performance. The visual variables of did not influence motor performance. Regression analysis explained between 75.8% and 96.7% of the variance of the visual performance. GI showed lower performance when compared to GII for motor and visual variables. The presence of several predictors for the classification of motor and visual performance suggests the presence of neurodevelopmental delay, which might be aggravated by social isolation resulting from the Pandemic, which must be seen as a warning sign for speech therapists and pedagogues.