The assessment of motor proficiency is essential across childhood to identify children’s strengths and difficulties and to provide adequate instruction and opportunities; assessment is a powerful tool to promote children’s development. This study aimed to investigate the hierarchal order of the Test of Gross Motor Development-Third Edition (TGMD-3) items regarding difficulty levels and the differential item functioning across gender and age group (3 to 5, 6 to 8, and 9 to 10 years old). Participants are 989 children (3 to 10.9 years; girls n = 491) who were assessed using TGMD-3. For locomotor skills, appropriate results reliability (alpha = 1.0), infit (M = 0.99; SD = 0.17), outfit (M = 1.18; SD = 0.64), and point-biserial correlations (rpb values from 0.14 to 0.58) were found; the trend was similar for ball skills: reliability (alpha = 1.0), infit (M = 0.99; SD = 0.13), outfit (M = 1.08; SD = 0.52); point-biserial correlations (rpb values from 0.06 to 0.59) were obtained. Two motor criteria: gallop, item-1, and one-hand forehand strike, item-4, were the most difficult items; in contrast, run, item-2, and two-hand catch, item-2, were the easiest items. Differential item functioning for age was observed in nine locomotor and ten ball skills items. These items were easier for older children compared to younger ones. The TGMD-3 has items with different difficulty levels capable of differential functioning across age groups.

This study investigated the contextual factors, motor performance, and body mass index across indigenous land children, indigenous urban children, and non-indigenous urban children. A number of 153 children, both sexes (71 girls, 46.4%), from 8 to 10 years were assessed. The Test of Motor Gross Development-3 was utilized. Indigenous land children showed higher motor performance (η2ρ = 0.37 and η2ρ = 0.19 locomotor and object control, respectively) than indigenous urban children (p < 0.03) and non-indigenous urban children (p < 0.01); Indigenous urban children showed higher motor performance than non-indigenous urban children (p < 0.01). Body mass index was similar across groups (η2ρ = 0,02; p = 0.15). Motor performance of indigenous land children was explained by the contextual factors that lead to a more active lifestyle, unsupervised free time, and play outside. In urban areas, behavior was similar, and although indigenous urban children kept some play tradition, it was not strong enough to be a protective factor for the motor performance.

The tactical knowledge and motor coordination with the ball are important contents in the early stages of teaching team sports. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the effects of a team sports teaching-learning program based on implicit learning, on the procedural tactical knowledge (PTK) and motor coordination with the ball of 24 children (10 to 12 years old) from rural (RS) and urban (US) schools. We measured the dependent variables at 4 different times (M1, M2, M3, and M4) and developed the program between the M1-M2 and M3-M4. An increased PTK in attacking and defensive actions with the hands in M3 (17.46) compared to M1 (11.25) for the US group was observed. Regarding the motor coordination, the students presented higher scores for task one in M4 (Hands: US: 3.93 ± 0.27 and RS: 3.90. Feet: US: 4.00 and RS: 4.00) compared to M1 (Hands: US: 1.71 and RS: 1.80. Feet: US: 2.14 and RS: 1.90), as well as in task four in M4 (clockwise and counterclockwise: US: 4.00 and RS: 4.00) compared to M1 (clockwise : US: 1.64 and RS: 0.40, counterclockwise: US: 1.36 and RS: 0.70). We conclude that the program was effective in developing motor coordination.

O objetivo foi investigar o desempenho em habilidades motoras fundamentais, o estado nutricional e os fatores ambientais associados em crianças indígenas. Participaram 66 crianças indígenas da etnia Sateré-Mawé e Pataxós residentes em aldeias do estado do Amazonas (AM) e Minas Gerais (MG). Os resultados mostraram que crianças indígenas de MG apresentaram maior peso, estatura, IMC e maior desempenho em habilidades de controle de objetos que crianças indígenas do AM. Nas crianças indígenas de MG, os fatores ambientais oferecem mais oportunidades de práticas fisicamente ativas. Fatores ambientais associaram-se de maneira distinta ao desempenho das habilidades motoras de indígenas do AM e MG. Conclui-se que alguns fatores direcionaram para possíveis trajetórias de maior desempenho em habilidades motoras fundamentais, dependendo da inter-relação organismo e ambiente vivenciado.

O objetivo do presente estudo foi analisar as oportunidadesde estimulação motora em ambientes domiciliares e fatores associadosem crianças de Parintins/Amazonas. Participaram 300 pais/responsáveispor crianças da cidade de Parintins/Amazonas. Affordances in the HomeEnvironment for Motor Development foi utilizado para avaliar oportunidades de estimulação motora. A prevalência de baixa estimulação moto-ra foi 78% maior nas casas em que moravam quatro ou mais adultos(RP: 1,78; IC95%: 1,07-2,87); mães com o ensino fundamental (RP: 15,93;IC95%:2,45-17,50) e ensino médio (RP: 10,07; IC95%: 1,46-54,01) forne-cem baixa estimulação motora; e crianças do sexo masculino apresenta-ram maior probabilidade de baixa estimulação motora (RP: 1,56; IC95%:1,09-1,94). Identificamos que lares nessa região não ofertam oportuni-dades de estimulação motora adequada para as crianças.

Objective : Examine the internal structure of Test of Gross Motor Development-3 through Confirmatory Factorial Analysis (CFA) and Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM) in Brazilian children. Design : Cross-sectional study. Methods : Participants were 1,454 children (girls, n = 742, 51%), aged from 3 to 10.9 years old, from all five Brazilian macroregions (North, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast, and South). Five models were tested: Unidimensional, two first-order factor, and Bifactor models from CFA and two first-order and Bifactor models from the ESEM approach. Results : Among the CFA approaches, the bifactor CFA model (Comparative Fit Index = .91, Tucker–Lewis’s index = .90, root mean square error of approximation = .05) demonstrated better fit. Among the ESEM models, the bifactor-ESEM model (Comparative Fit Index = .97, Tucker–Lewis’s index = .94, root mean square error of approximation = .05) presented the best fit. Conclusion : Results supported the validity evidence of a bifactor representation of the Test of Gross Motor Development-3, revealing the presence of a potential global motor skills factor encompassing shared motor components, beyond locomotor and ball skills dimensions. These shared motor components could be understood as the foundational actions that emphasize the role of shared constraints and actions across motor tasks.