title: [Relationship between children's motor coordination and their physical growth].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To explore the relationship between children's motor coordination and their physical growth to provide clues for clarifying the causal relationship between them and to effectively enhance the children's physical growth.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ten kindergartens were selected randomly from district of Hongkou, Putuo and Pudong in Shanghai, and 1099 children were included in the analysis. The children's motor coordination was assessed using Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCDQ). The relationship between the children's motor coordination and their physical growth were analyzed by Structural Equation Model (SEM). The above relationship by different gender, age and BMI (overweight or not) were analyzed with multi-group SEM.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of 1099 subjects, 561 were boys (51%), and 538 were girls (49%). Of the total subjects, 354 (32.2%) were children aged 3-years old, 441 (40.1%) were children aged 4-years, 276 (25.2%) were children aged 5-years, and 28 were children (2.5%) aged 6-years old. The result of SEM showed that the children's gross motor, fine motor and general motor ability was correlated positively with children's physical growth (P < 0.001), their standardized estimation of structural coefficient were 0.40, 0.36, 0.37 respectively. The result of multi-group SEM showed that there was no significant difference in the SEM between different gender and ages. The fine motor ability was positively correlated with child physical growth (P < 0.001). There was no inter-group difference in the structural model (each P > 0.05). However, there was difference in the structural model between overweight and normal group, of them, only the structural coefficient of gross motor and physical growth were different between the two groups (t = 1.697, P < 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is a relationship between children's motor coordination and physical growth. The degree of association between the gross moter and physical growth in overweight children were different from the normal children. Further study on the factors influencing the children's physical growth is needed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Statistics and Social Medicine, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hua
authors.forename: Mei-hong
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Xian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Gui-xiong
authors.initials: GX
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Zhuo-chun
authors.initials: ZC
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002681:China; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires