TITLE:
Effects of a Rhythmic-Play Exercise Program on Coordination in Preschool Children
AUTHORS:
Eri Yoshimi, Teruo Nomura, Noriyuki Kida
KEYWORDS:
Coordination, Rhythmic Play, Exercise Program, Preschool Children
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Physical Education,
Vol.11 No.2,
May
10,
2021
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.