Effects of a Rhythmic-Play Exercise Program on Coordination in Preschool Children

Abstract

This study was intended to clarify the effects of an exercise program emphasizing rhythmic play on different aspects of motor coordination in preschool children. Eighty preschoolers (46 four-year-olds, 34 five-year-olds) participated in the program for four weeks. Different components of coordination were evaluated before and after the intervention using the Coordination Field Test (CFT), a test battery developed by the Expert Committee on Coordination at Japan’s Research Center in Physical Education. Two-factor repeated-measures ANOVA detected no significant interactions between measurement time and preschool year. Preschool year (age) had significant main effects on children’s performance of a jump-over-crawl-under task (F = 27.45), a zigzag-run task (F = 10.03), and a side-stepping task (F = 15.97); measurement time had significant main effects only in the last two (F = 18.83, 158.84, respectively). The global improvements observed on the zigzag-run and side-stepping tasks reveal that this rhythmic-play exercise program influences coordination skills related to agility. Conversely, children start displaying a need for opportunities to acquire (fine-motor) coordination skills related to dexterity around the age of four. Altogether, our findings confirm that the rhythmic-play exercise program examined here can effectively improve different aspects of coordination in preschool children.