Relationship between motor skill competency and executive function in children with Down's syndrome.
In school-age kids with Down syndrome, weaker motor skills go hand-in-hand with weaker executive function—assess both domains when planning interventions.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Freeman et al. (2015) compared kids with Down syndrome to same-age peers without disabilities.
They gave each child two short tests: one for motor skills like throwing and balancing, and one for executive function like remembering rules and switching tasks.
The goal was to see if weaker motor scores lined up with weaker EF scores inside the Down-syndrome group.
What they found
Children with Down syndrome scored lower than typical peers on both motor and EF tasks.
Within the Down-syndrome group, the kids who had the lowest motor scores also had the lowest EF scores.
The link stayed even after the researchers accounted for IQ.
How this fits with other research
Smith et al. (2010) saw the same motor-EF link in a broader group of kids with mild intellectual disability, so Freeman et al. (2015) confirms the pattern holds when you zoom in on Down syndrome alone.
Hong et al. (2021) pooled 57 studies and showed large EF deficits across Down syndrome; Freeman et al. (2015) adds that motor skill may be a quick red flag for those EF problems.
Morrison et al. (2017) extended the idea further, finding that EF gaps in Down syndrome predict school math and reading scores, hinting that motor screening could indirectly flag academic risk too.
Why it matters
If you work with elementary-age clients who have Down syndrome, add a five-minute motor checklist to your EF assessment.
A low score can prompt you to probe working memory or shifting skills sooner and to weave motor practice into EF interventions, like obstacle courses that require rule switching.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Previous studies suggest that children with Down's syndrome (DS), a genetically based neurodevelopmental disorder, demonstrate motor problems and cognitive deficits. The first aim of this study was to examine motor skills and executive functions (EFs) in school-age children with DS. The second aim was to investigate the relationship between these two performance domains. METHODS: The Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD-2), the Movement Assessment Battery Children-2 checklist (MABC2-checklist) and the Trail-Making Test for young children (Trails-P) were used to assess motor and cognitive performances of 18 children (11 boys, 7 girls) with DS aged between 7 and 11 years (9.06 ± 0.96) and an age- and sex-matched sample of 18 typically developing (TD) children (11 boys, 7 girls; 8.99 ± 0.93). RESULTS: Individuals with DS showed the expected difficulties in attentional control, response suppression and distraction, as well as in locomotor and object control skills, as indicated by poorer performance than TD individuals. Motor performance (bottom-up as well as top-down measures) and EF correlated positively, with regard to the group with DS only though. In the most complex task (distraction), the children of the DS group achieving lower locomotor scores showed lower efficacy scores on the Trails-P. Additionally, strong relationships were found for the perspective of teachers on all sections of the MABC2-Checklist and EF. CONCLUSION: The findings from this study suggest that children with DS are not only impaired in higher-order EF, but showing also deficits in locomotor and object control skills. This study stresses the importance of early interventions facilitating cognitive abilities and motor skills.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2015 · doi:10.1111/jir.12189