Risk Factor for Gross Motor Delay

Gross motor skills is the involvement of big muscles to do the activity, it can be divided into locomotion(walking, running, jumping), object controlling skills(throwing, kicking) and balance or stability skills.

It is an important contributor for healthy growth and development in children.

In addition, gross motor skills is the key domain in early child development which is essential to support cognitive and social-emotional development, school readiness and academic performance.

With the great impact of gross motor skills on others' domains and skills, it is bringing up delay in the gross motor skills concerns. Early identification of gross motor skills and implementing intervention are beneficial to support the child’s development.

The potential risk factor associated with delay in gross motor skills in terms of extrinsic factors as follows:-

1. Gender- In the study, boys were experiencing more delay in one or more domains compared to girls. Literature shows girls perform better in locomotion and balance skills; while boys perform better in ball skills. When the examining test is made up of 2 questions from the above mentioned subtest, girls might have advantage in four out of six items.

2. Weight status- Children who are underweight are more prone to delay in gross motor development due to inadequate nutrition intake.

3. Prematurity Status- Early term pregnancy, less than 37 weeks of gestation is associated with the risk of gross motor delayed. As preterm delivery is closely related to pregnancy complications might affect the function of the child's brain.

4. Family characteristic- A low socio-economic background has an influence on the child’s development. A childhood poverty can limit the available resources and the opportunity to learn meaningful and functional skills during child-parental interaction.

By identifying and understanding the potential risk factor for a child's gross motor development delay, it helps us to recognize the needs of early screening might be necessary in the specific population, in order to identify the delays and give appropriate intervention for the children.