Motor development of moderate preterm children at seven and eight years of age

Abstract

Preterm children may have light motor developmental impairments, which may be imperceptible until pre-school age or even school age. The aim of this study was to compare the motor development of moderate preterm children with full-term ones at seven and eight years of age. Data from 13 preterm and 13 full-term children were collected from a public school in Betim-MG. The Motor Development Scale was used to access fine and global motricity, balance, body scheme, spatial organization, time organization, as well as general motor age and general motor quotient. The Mann-Whitney's Test was used to compare the motor ages and motor quotients between the groups. A significant difference was only found in the fine motricity values between the groups (p=0.01), the preterm group having shown a poorer performance. Therefore, moderate preterm children who do not have highly risky biological characteristics at birth may also need outpatient assistance up to school age.