An Exploratory Investigation of the Effect of a Sports Vision Program on Grade 4 and 5 Female Netball Players' Visual Skills.

Vision is one of the most complex and dominant sensory systems necessary for information feedback from the environment. Few studies have already reported a positive effect of a sport vision program on elite sport teams' visual skills; however, few studies have focused on the effect of sport vision programs on children's visual skills. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effect of a sports vision program on Grade 4 and 5 female netball players' visual skills. Girls (N = 25) with a mean age of 10.08 years (SD = 0.65) formed part of this study. A pre-test-post-test design was followed with a retention test. The eight-week sports vision program was executed twice a week for 60 min on the experimental group (n = 13). The Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI-4), the Wayne Saccadic Fixator (WSF) and the Developmental Eye Movement (DEM) test were used to evaluate the girls' visual skills, hand-eye coordination, visual reaction time, peripheral vision and saccadic eye movements. No statistical differences were found between the two groups before starting with the sports vision program. After intervention, significant differences between the two groups were reported, with the experimental group performing better in hand-eye coordination (p = 0.001) and reaction time (p = 0.001). Results further indicated that the experimental group experienced significant improvements (p ≤ 0.05) in motor coordination, hand-eye coordination, reaction speed and visual tracking after intervention with significant lasting effects (p ≤ 0.05). The control group performed significantly worse in reaction time (p = 0.01). A sports vision program can be recommended for Grade 4 and 5 female netball players to improve certain visual skills.

Influences of persistent overweight on perceptual-motor proficiency of primary school children: the North-West CHILD longitudinal study : Persistent overweight and perceptual-motor proficiency in children.

BACKGROUND: Overweight can be a precursor of poor motor execution, negatively impacting the overall development of school-aged children on various levels. This study determined the long-term influences of overweight on perceptual-motor proficiency (PMP) of primary school children in the North-West Province of South Africa. METHODS: The study, which included 381 participants, formed part of the NW-CHILD longitudinal study from Grade 1 (6.86 years, ± 0.39) in 2010 to Grade 7 (12.9 years, ± 0.38) in 2016. Socioeconomic categories, called quintiles, were used to compare high and low socioeconomic status groups. Overweight was identified when BMI values fell above the 85th percentile, using age- and gender-specific cut-off points. The group was categorised into 4 BMI groups (never overweight, persistent overweight, overweight-to-normal and normal-to-overweight). The Bruininks Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency-2 (BOT-2) Short Form and selected composites measuring strength, balance, and running speed and agility were used to assess PMP. RESULTS: A repeated measures ANOVA analysis indicated specific PMP differences between different BMI groups, but not total motor proficiency (BOT-2 Short Form total) differences. Practical significant group differences (Cohen's d-values) were found in running speed and agility, strength, balance and the BOT-2 total, over seven primary school years. The persistent overweight group showed the poorest performance over time, but also showed deteriorating skills and a gradual widening in perceptual-motor skills performance, compared to the other groups. BMI-related differences in perceptual-motor coordination were also more pronounced in older age groups. CONCLUSIONS: Persistent overweight negatively impacts specific motor-proficiency components, while improving weight status can counter these effects, which highlights the importance of timeous intervention to combat obesity at a young age.

Influence of Different Visual Perceptual Constructs on Academic Achievement Among Learners in the NW-CHILD Study.

Visual perception plays an important and integrating role in the development of cognitive abilities and perceptual-motor skills. Visual perception comprises different independent constructs that may function in an integrative manner. This study aimed to determine whether (and the extent to which) various visual-perceptual constructs influence the academic achievement of 12-year-old school children. In a cross-sectional analysis, we extracted only 2016 data from 581 learners (mean age = 12.92 years, SD = 0.42) who were participants in the North-West Child Health, Integrated with Learning and Development longitudinal study (2010-2016). We used the Test of Visual Perceptual Skills, Third Edition, the North-West Provincial Assessment and mid-year school examination reports to determine visual perceptual abilities and academic achievement of this participant group. We calculated correlations between visual perceptual constructs and academic performance using Spearman rank order correlations and separately analyzed the influence of gender and socioeconomic status with independent T tests. Different visual perceptual constructs did have significant influences on specific areas of academic learning and on academic achievement generally ( r = .26 to r = .41). Spatial relationships showed slightly greater correlations with academic achievement ( r = .15 to r = .33) than did other basic visual perceptual constructs, possibly because spatial relationships are not completely developed at age 12. Complex and basic visual perceptual skills had medium significant retrospective correlations with grade point average ( r = .40 and r = .41) and first additional language ( r = .30 and r = .33). We concluded that basic and complex visual perceptual constructs remain important for academic achievement in this age-group, while gender and socioeconomic status influence both visual perceptual abilities and academic achievement.