Effects of Motor Cognitive and Metacognitive Interventions on Motor and Cognitive Skills of Preschool Children

Despite the growing body of research showing the effectiveness of motor interventions for children both physically and cognitively, there is still a lack of sufficient information regarding the effects of different motor programs and finding suitable interventions to improve motor and cognitive skills in early childhood. This study was conducted to investigate and compare the effects of cognitive and metacognitive factors in motor interventions on the motor and cognitive skills of preschool children.
Sixty-six 6-year-old children (32 girls, 34 boys) participated in this study and were randomly assigned to three experimental groups (motor group (7 girls, 10 boys), motor-cognitive group (8 girls, 8 boys), and motor-metacognitive group (7 girls, 9 boys)) along with a control group (10 girls, 7 boys). The participants in all three experimental groups received a motor program specific to their group for 18 sessions. The Bruininks-Oseretsky test of motor proficiency (BOT-2), the Toulouse-Pieron cancellation test (TP), and the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task (HTKS) were used to collect data. Multivariate repeated measures and multivariate analysis of covariance were used for data analysis.
The findings showed that, compared to the control group, the improvement of cognitive skills in the motor-cognitive group was more than that in the motor and motor-metacognitive groups (p < 0.05). Also, the improvement of motor skills in the motor-metacognitive group was more than that in the motor and motor-cognitive groups (p < 0.05).
According to the results obtained, it seems that if motor interventions are combined with cognitive and metacognitive activities, they can have more cognitive and motor benefits for preschool children.