Abstract
<p>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&lt;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&lt;0.01). The social skills of these children revealed a statistically significant difference in line with their gender (p&lt;0.01). On the other hand, there was no statistically significant difference according to the age of the children (p&gt;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&gt;0.05). Our study could not identify a meaningful relationship between motor skills and the children's social skills (p&gt;0.05).</p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0862/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>
Highlights
Child development is a complex process that combines environmental factors, experiences, and biological characteristics of a child
We aimed to study the relationships between social skills and motor skills of 5-6year-old children in the study
The study investigated the relationship between motor skills and social skills of preschool children in terms of their age, gender, and body mass index
Summary
Child development is a complex process that combines environmental factors, experiences, and biological characteristics of a child. With the motor development in children, a child begins to gain independence and to adapt to the physical and social environment (Formiga, 2015). The development of motor skills in children highlights the learning abilities of children. Monitoring motor development in children provides clues to whether the children's development is following typical development. Monitoring children's development does provide us with information about the abilities of the child and may cause changes in the expectations of parents about their children. A healthy child will be more active throughout his life and be open to improving his motor skills (Stodden et al, 2008). Some studies draw attention to the mighty and significant relationship between motor competence and physical fitness in children (Logan et al, 2011; Morano et al, 2011; Sigmundsson & Haga, 2016)
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