The Effect of Traditional Games on Development of Manipulation Skills of Boys Aged between 6 and 8 in Deprived Areas

One of the basic motor skills in childhood is manipulation skills. Gross motor manipulation is a person's relationship with the objects and has this feature: force is applied to an object or the force of an object is absorbed. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of a selected motor program including team traditional games as motor experiences on manipulation skills development in boys aged between 6 and 8 (1st to 3rd grade of elementary school) in deprived areas. In this semi-experimental study, 20 children were selected from the male children in deprived areas of Andimeshk city purposively by convenience sampling method through a personality questionnaire. Firstly, they were pretested with Ulrich Gross Motor Development Test. The subjects were randomly matched in two groups: 10 kids in experiment group and 10 kids in control group. Then the selected motor program was executed for 24 sessions, 45 minutes each session for 8 weeks. During the execution of the program, the control group performed their usual activities. After the end of the program, both groups were post-tested. After checking the normality of the data and equality of variances, data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance and one-way ANOVA in the context of MANOVA. Results showed that traditional games had a positive effect on development of manipulation skills (F6.4=30.75, sig=0.003, ƞ2=0.979). So an opportunity can be provided for children to train and increase the development of their basic manipulation skills and their movement by encouraging them to play proper games and enriching the environment.