Sex differences in 3- to 5-year-old children's motor competence : a pooled cross-sectional analysis of 6241 children

Martins, Clarice and Webster, Elizabeth K. and Romo-Perez, Vicente and Duncan, Michael and Lemos, Luís Filipe and Staiano, Amanda and Okely, Anthony and Magistro, Daniele and Carlevaro, Fabio and Bardid, Farid and Magno, Francesca and Nobre, Glauber and Estevan, Isaac and Mota, Jorge and Ning, Ke and Robinson, Leah E. and Lenoir, Matthieu and Quan, Minghui and Valentini, Nadia and Dehkordi, Parvaneh S. and Cross, Penny and Jones, Rachel and Henrique, Rafael S. and Salami, Sedigheh and Chen, Sitong and Diao, Yucui and Bandeira, Paulo R. and Barnett, Lisa M. (2024) Sex differences in 3- to 5-year-old children's motor competence : a pooled cross-sectional analysis of 6241 children. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 34 (5). e14651. ISSN 0905-7188 (https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.14651)

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Abstract

There is some, albeit inconsistent, evidence supporting sex differences in preschoolers' motor competence (MC), with these observations not uniform when analyzed by age, and cultural groups. Thus, this study examined sex differences across ages in 3- to 5-year-old children's MC. A cross-country pooled sample of 6241 children aged 3–5 years (49.6% girls) was assessed for MC using the Test of Gross Motor Development—2nd/3rd edition, and children were categorized into groups of age in months. Multiple linear regression models and predictive margins were calculated to explore how sex and age in months affect scores of MC (i.e., locomotor and ball skills), with adjustments for country and BMI. The Chow's Test was used to test for the presence of a structural break in the data. Significant differences in favor of girls were seen at 57–59 and 66–68 months of age for locomotor skills; boys performed better in ball skills in all age periods, except for 42–44 and 45–47 months of age. The higher marginal effects were observed for the period between 45–47 and 48–50 months for locomotor skills (F = 30.21; and F = 25.90 for girls and boys, respectively), and ball skills (F = 19.01; and F = 42.11 for girls and boys, respectively). A significantly positive break point was seen at 45–47 months, highlighting the age interval where children's MC drastically improved. The identification of this breakpoint provides an evidence-based metric for when we might expect MC to rapidly increase, and an indicator of early delay when change does not occur at that age.

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