Family's socio-economic status on motor development of children: structure modeling with intermediation of mother's physical activity

Childhood is a critical period for motor development. The developmental potentials of preschool aged children are basic for many adult skills. The researchers showed that the motor development of preschool aged children is not pleasant. Several hereditary and environmental factors can affect childrenchr('39')s motor development, but the environmental factors are important than hereditary elements, because they are flexible and changeable. The socioeconomic status of families and mothers are important between other environment factors because children have long and close dependence to their families. The variable world technology leads to poverty movements that can danger for physical health of individuals, families, and society or exist the cognitive or socioemotional problems. These variables can be limiter or provider. It means that the families or parents may have a supportive and modelling role or preventer. This research investigated childrenchr('39')s motor development status and studied the families and parent effects on preschool aged childrenchr('39')s motor development.

The methodology of this research was descriptive–correlation (structural equation modeling). The participants were 150 (4–year–old: n=50, 5–year–old: n=50, 6–year–old: n=50) children with 4–6 aged (65.56±8.55 month old) and their mothers (34.38±5.81 years old) that lived in Sarab city in Eastern Azerbaijan province (Northwest of Iran), and chosen by cluster sampling. The equipment were demographic questionnaire (age, high, width of children and the age of mothers), Godratnama socioeconomic questionnaire (with subscales of income, education, economic category, and home), short form of international physical activity (IPAQ–sf) questionnaire (three levels of inactive, sufficient mobility, and much mobility measured by the cost of expenditure energy or Meets) and short form of the second edition of motor proficiency of Bruininks–Oseretsky (BOT2–Sf) test (with subscales of bilateral coordination, balance, speed running and agility, strength, manual dexterity, upper limb coordination, fine motor integration, fine motor precision). The Cronbachchr('39')s alpha coefficient of Godratnama questionnaire was 0.72, the test–retests reliability coefficient of BOT2–Sf and IPAQ–Sf were 0.809, and 0.86. The entrance criterion was no apparent disorders of vision, hearing, physical, motor, and behavior of mothers and children. The motherschr('39') filled written consent and all three questionnaires, then the children participated in motor proficiency test. All data analyzed by SPSS ver.16 and Smart PLS3 software.

The motor development of children was lower than average (28.85±11.156). The higher than seventy values of Bruninks test showed the most higher than average of motor development status, but it was lower than thirty value express and the most lower than average of motor development status. The socioeconomic status of families had a positive and significant effect on motor development of children (β=0.425, p<0.0001), but had not positive and significant effect on motherchr('39')s physical activity (β=0.076, p=0.348). In addition, the motherchr('39')s physical activity had significant effect on motor development of children (β=0.204, p=0.011). It means that direct effect of socioeconomic status on motor development of children was significant, but non–direct effect of it was not (by mediation of mothers physical activity) significant.

The status of childrenchr('39')s motor development was not optimal. The familieschr('39') socioeconomic status was as a stimulus for childrenchr('39')s motor development, but as a preventive for motherschr('39') physical activity, and the motherchr('39')s physical activities had a facilitator role on motor development of children. Then it seems that the financial or time support of families or modelling of mothers can facilitate the motor development of children.