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Motor Function and Social Participation

in Kindergarten Children
Yair Bar-Haim and Orit Bart, Tel-Aviv University
Abstract
This study focused on the associations between individual variations in childrens
motor abilities and individual differences in social participation and play behavior.
Indoor and outdoor play behavior patterns of 88 kindergarten children were observed,
and a battery of standard assessments of basic motor functions was administered. The
ndings indicate signicant associations between childrens motor abilities and social
and nonsocial forms of play. Results are discussed in relation to existing conceptual
models of the underlying causes for nonsocial behavior.
Keywords: motor skills; motor ability; social play; reticence; solitary behavior
Social play and peer interaction provide a framework for children to explore their
physical and social environments. Conversely, lack of social interaction during child-
hood has been associated with a variety of social and emotional difculties including
behavior problems, peer rejection, depression, and low self-esteem (for reviews, see
Cheah, Nelson & Rubin, 2001; Kupersmidt, Coie & Dodge, 1990; Rubin, Bukowski
& Parker, 1998; Rubin, Burgess & Coplan, 2002). Noting the detrimental effect that
lack of peer interaction may have on childrens psychological and behavioral adjust-
ment, much research has focused on possible etiologic and mediating factors relating
to solitary behavior. These include, among others, interpersonal relationships, tem-
peramental tendencies, cultural inuences, social-cognitive deciencies, and biologi-
cal markers (e.g., Coplan, Rubin, Fox, Calkins & Stewart, 1994; Fox, Henderson,
Rubin, Calkins & Schmidt, 2001; Henderson, Marshall, Fox & Rubin, 2004; Hinde,
Tamplin & Barrett, 1993; Kagan, Reznick & Snidman, 1987; Kochanska & Radke-
Yarrow, 1992; Rubin & Asendorpf, 1993; Spinard, Eisenberg, Harris, Hanish, Fabes
& Kupanoff, 2004).
Interestingly, one rather obvious potential background factor in the development of
social participation, that is, childrens motor abilities, has been relatively neglected in
the research literature. The present study explored whether individual variations in
childrens motor abilities are associated with individual differences in social and
solitary play behavior. The logic behind this implied association relies on the fact
that the processing and organization of external and internal sensorymotor input,
and the coordination of motor output must be reected in childrens social interactive
style.
Correspondence should be addressed to Yair Bar-Haim, Department of Psychology, Tel-Aviv
University, Ramat Aviv, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel. Email: yair1@post.tau.ac.il
Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Motor Function and Social Participation 297
Individual variations in posture and movement control, motor planning and execu-
tion, and visualmotor coordination provide children with different types of move-
ment challenges that they must solve in order to exercise efcient social engagement
(Fogel, 1992). For example, the ability to maintain standing postures signicantly
increases the amount of social interaction in 8- to 12-month-olds (Gustafson, 1984).
Locomotor experience has been shown to facilitate the development of childrens
social referencing skills (Campos, Kermoian, Witherington, Chen & Dong, 1997).
And, upright locomotion has been shown to play a signicant role in the affective
organization of motherinfant interaction (Biringen, Emde, Campos & Appelbaum,
1995). However, if age-related motor capabilities are not achieved, a childs social
behavior may be compromised. For instance, Smyth and Anderson (2000) reported
that 6- to 10-year-olds with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) spent more
time alone and were onlookers more often during school playground activity com-
pared with normally coordinated children. These authors suggest that children with
impaired coordination can become isolated or solitary on the school playground.
Difculties in processing and integrating motor actions can occur in children who
have no diagnostically identiable neuromotor impairment. Nevertheless, such difcul-
ties may result in play dysfunction. During play, children are required to retain static
postures that demand efcient balance control. Children also need to move freely in and
out of postural positions in order to take part in peer play. Likewise, normal muscle tone
is essential for executing and maintaining such motor actions and movements. Hypo-
tonic children (i.e., children with low muscle tone) typically nd it difcult to stay
engaged in motor action for prolonged periods of time and therefore tend to avoid gross
motor activities that involve continuous muscle endurance (Ayres, 1980a; Lane, 2002).
In addition, childrens play behavior is highly dependent on the ability to motor plan
activities in an efcient way. The motor planning of a play task involves generating
an idea of the motor task to be performed, sequencing the idea, and executing the
sequence efciently. If these complex neurobehavioral processes are successful, the
child is able to produce an adaptive behavior and a goal-directed action that meets
the environmental challenges of social activity. However, poor integration and pro-
cessing of sensorymotor information may adversely affect play behavior and limit a
childs choice of play activities. It has been suggested that children characterized by
poor motor planning abilities tend to have poor play skills and often fail to participate
in activities or tasks performed in a group setting (e.g., Ayres, 1980a; Schaaf, Merril
& Kinsella, 1987). Clinical observations suggest that such children tend to move
slowly and fearfully and may avoid gross motor activity (e.g., Parham & Fazio, 1997).
In conclusion, despite the intuitively expected association between sensorymotor
capabilities and social behavior, mainstream experimental and developmental psy-
chology have traditionally considered the question of how children plan and execute
movement to be of relatively little interest to the eld of social and emotional
development (cf. Campos, Anderson, Barbu-Roth, Hubbard, Hertenstein &
Witherington, 2000; Pellegrini & Smith, 1998; Smyth & Anderson, 2000). Therefore,
the objective of the present study was to provide an analysis of the associations
between individual differences in childrens motor abilities and individual differences
in social and solitary behavior.
Children may play alone for different reasons. Researchers have identied at
least three distinct forms of solitary behavior that appear to differ in terms of their
behavioral manifestation and motivational underpinnings (e.g., Coplan et al., 1994;
Coplan, Prakash, ONeil & Armer, 2004; Rubin & Asendorpf, 1993).
Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006 Social Development, 15, 2, 2006
298 Yair Bar-Haim and Orit Bart
Social reticence is characterized by a cluster of solitary behaviors consisting of pro-
longed onlooking at other childrens play without making attempts to join in, and of
being unoccupied (Coplan et al., 1994). Children who engage in reticent behavior
appear socially motivated but are wary, vigilant, and socially anxious (Rubin &
Asendorpf, 1993). Reticent behaviors are readily detected as problematic by parents,
teachers, and peers, and have been related to overt indicators of anxiety, poor perfor-
mance on cooperative tasks, poor social skills, and deciencies in the ability to
regulate negative emotions (Coplan, Gavinski-Molina, Lagace-Seguin & Wichmann,
2001; Rubin, Coplan, Fox & Calkins, 1995). We hypothesize that part of the variance
in childrens reticent behavior may be explained by deciencies in their motor ability.
Specically, children with suboptimal motor performance may feel more anxious and
disadvantaged in sequencing and performing the motor tasks associated with social
interaction.
A second cluster of social withdrawal behaviors detected in children has been
labeled solitarypassive play (Rubin, 1982). This behavioral pattern involves the quiet
solitary exploration of objects and constructive play activities (e.g., drawing, building
with blocks, dressing dolls). It has been hypothesized that these behaviors indicate low
motivation to approach or avoid others (Asendorpf, 1990, 1991), and therefore reect
social disinterest. In general, solitarypassive play has not been associated with mal-
adjustment (e.g., Coplan & Rubin, 1998; Coplan et al., 1994; Rubin, 1982). It is not
entirely clear, however, that solitarypassive play is never associated with social or
emotional difculties. For example, Coplan et al. (2001) reported that observed soli-
tarypassive play in kindergarteners was associated with temperamental shyness and
indices of maladjustment for boys but not for girls. Henderson et al. (2004) also
reported an association between a high frequency of solitarypassive play and mater-
nal reports of temperamental shyness. Such ndings may suggest that solitarypassive
play is not always a matter of preference for solitude. However, because it has been
suggested that solitarypassive behavior is more a function of low social interest,
rather than inability for social interaction; and because solitarypassive play involves
high frequencies of constructive and exploratory behavior, both requiring good posture
control, motor planning, and coordination, no specic associations were expected
between high frequency of solitarypassive play and motor abilities.
Another form of solitary play that has been described in the literature is solitary
functional play (Rubin, 1982).
1
This form of solitary behavior involves simple motor
activities and repetitive motor movements performed with or without objects (e.g.,
repeatedly banging two blocks together, jumping on and off a chair, swinging on a
swing). It has been suggested that solitaryfunctional play is the rst structural cate-
gory of play to appear in infancy and that through functional play, children come to
acquire basic motor skills inherent in their daily activities (Piaget, 1962; Smilansky,
1968). From a motor development perspective, solitaryfunctional behavior requires
only low levels of motor planning and execution. In contrast to the expected high
occurrence of solitaryfunctional behavior in infants and toddlers, high frequencies
of solitaryfunctional play in kindergarten children may imply low levels of play
development and an increased need for simple motor practice. We hypothesized that
suboptimal motor development in kindergarten children may induce an increased need
for simple sensorymotor exploration in the form of solitaryfunctional play.
In summary, we expected to nd an interaction between motor ability and type of
play behavior. Specically, we expected that children with high motor ability would
display a higher frequency of social play compared with children of low motor ability,
Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006 Social Development, 15, 2, 2006
Motor Function and Social Participation 299
reecting the efcient physical support that good motor abilities may provide for social
interaction. Conversely, children with low motor ability were expected to display a
higher frequency of social reticence and solitaryfunctional play compared with chil-
dren with high motor ability. Unlike the expected associations between motor ability
and social play, solitaryfunctional play, and reticent behavior, no specic associations
were expected between solitarypassive play and motor abilities, as solitarypassive
play involves constructive and exploratory behavior, both requiring good posture
control, motor planning, and coordination.
In addition, it is possible that there are effects of context (indoor versus outdoor)
and gender on childrens frequencies of social and solitary play behavior. For example,
Spinard et al. (2004) suggested that solitary play exhibited during outdoor activities
may be less appropriate and less voluntary than this type of behavior during quiet
indoor activities. With respect to gender differences, there is a growing literature
indicating that social withdrawal is a greater risk factor for boys than for girls (Caspi,
Elder & Bem, 1988; Coplan et al., 2001; Dettling, Gunnar & Donzella, 1999; Rubin,
Chen & Hymel, 1993; Stevenson-Hinde & Glover, 1996). In that respect, an interac-
tion between motor ability and gender in predicting solitary behavior may be of
interest. However, given the scant research data about gender differences and context
inuence on social and nonsocial behavior, and the lack of previous studies on the
association between motor abilities and nonsocial behavior, hypotheses concerning
possible context and gender differences were largely exploratory in nature.
Method
Participants
Participants were 88 children (53 girls, 35 boys), recruited from seven randomly
selected mainstream public kindergarten classes situated in the greater Tel Aviv area,
Israel. Their mean age was 5.83 years (SD = 0.46; Range = 5.04 to 6.36 years).
Although approximately half the children in the selected kindergarten classes were
4-year-olds, age-related norms for several of the motor measures used in the study were
available starting from ve years of age. Therefore, an age of ve years or higher was
set as an inclusion criterion for the study. Parents of all eligible children in each of
the selected classes were contacted, of whom 68 percent agreed to participate in the
study. Excluded from the study were four children who, based on their parent reports,
had auditory or visual impairments, or received treatment for sensorymotor prob-
lems. By virtue of attending mainstream public kindergartens, none of the children
included in the study had a major developmental disorder such as Autism or Cerebral
Palsy. Fifty-six percent of the participants were rst-borns. Ninety-ve percent of par-
ticipants fathers and 98 percent of their mothers reported high school or higher levels
of education. Eighty-eight percent of the parents were married and living together.
Procedure and Measures
Assessment of Social Behavior. Childrens indoor and outdoors behavior was coded
using selected codes from Rubins (2001) Play Observation Scale. Data were collected
through eight visits to each kindergarten over a period of three months. Observations
were scheduled for the second semester of the school year to ensure that the children
had a fair opportunity to adjust to their kindergarten settings, their classmates, and
Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006 Social Development, 15, 2, 2006
300 Yair Bar-Haim and Orit Bart
their teachers. This provided a familiar context against which to assess childrens social
behavior. During each visit, each childs predominant free play behavior was recorded
for a series of ten-second intervals, summing up to one minute of unstructured play
indoors and one minute of unstructured play outdoors. Accordingly, a total of 16
minutes of play data were collected for each child, eight minutes indoors and eight
minutes outdoors, yielding 96 ten-second coding intervals per child (48 intervals of
indoor and 48 intervals of outdoor activity). To ensure good understanding of the
context of the observed activity, each ten-second interval of coding was preceded by
30 seconds of free observation. A stopwatch was used to beep-signal the initiation and
termination of the coding interval and behaviors were coded online into standard
coding sheets.
During each visit, children were observed in a random order by one of three grad-
uate students trained by the rst author, who has been trained in use of the Play Obser-
vation Scale in K. H. Rubins laboratory, and achieved criterion levels of reliability.
Inter-coder reliabilities were calculated on a randomly selected set of coding intervals
totaling 20 percent of the sampled behavior. Percent agreement for the total variable
matrix ranged between 93 and 96 percent; Cohens kappa ranged between .88 and .95.
Of specic interest to the present study were the sampled codes of social play (i.e.,
group play and conversation with peers), reticent behavior (i.e., unoccupied and
onlooking behaviors), solitarypassive play (i.e., solitaryconstructive and solitary
exploratory behaviors), and solitaryfunctional play. These raw scores were propor-
tionalized by dividing by the total number of coding intervals.
Assessment of Motor Function. Three trained occupational therapy students, who
were blind to the studys hypotheses and goals, administered a battery of motor skills
assessment at each childs home. This home visit included standardized assessments
of balance, kinesthesia, imitation of postures, muscle tone, and visualmotor integra-
tion. The selected motor tests were chosen so that collectively, they provided a com-
prehensive representation of childrens core motor abilities. That is, the combination
of posture control (balance and muscle tone), motor planning and execution (kines-
thesia and imitation of postures), and visualmotor integration. Each home visit lasted
approximately 60 minutes.
Balance. The balance subscale of the BruninksOseretsky Test of Motor Prociency
(Bruninks, 1978) is a widely used measure that consists of eight items: (1) standing on
one foot on the oor with eyes open; (2) standing on a balance beam with eyes open;
(3) standing with eyes closed; (4) walking forward on a line on the oor; (5) walking
on a balance beam; (6) heel-to-toe walking on a line; (7) heel-to-toe walking on a
balance beam; (8) stepping over a stick while walking on a balance beam. The test has
established age-related norms and shows adequate internal consistency.
Kinesthesia. The kinesthetic sense arises from joints, tendons, and muscle recep-
tors, and provides awareness of body position and movement. Kinesthesia was mea-
sured using the kinesthesia test (KIN; Ayres, 1980b). In this test, the experimenter
moves the childs hand from one predetermined point on a paper chart to another while
the childs hands remain out of his or her visual eld. The child is then asked to repeat
the motion on the kinesthesia chart, again without seeing his or her hands. The KIN
test consists of ten test items, ve for each hand. Hands are tested in an alternated
sequence.
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Motor Function and Social Participation 301
The KIN score is based on how accurately the child replicates the rehearsed motion,
measured as the distance in millimeters of the childs nger from the predetermined
target points. The raw score is then converted to a standard age-related score.
Imitation of postures. Childrens ability to perceive and replicate different body
positions was determined by the Imitation of Postures test (Ayres, 1980b). This test
requires the child to assume a series of twelve positions or postures demonstrated by
the examiner. The completion of each task requires motor planning of a familiar or
unfamiliar motor act. Two points are given for postures that are imitated correctly
within three seconds after the examiner has assumed the posture. One point is noted if
the child imitates the posture correctly within four to ten seconds. No points are scored
if the correct posture is assumed after ten seconds or if it does not meet the criteria for
a score of one or two points. The raw score of the test is the total number of points noted
for the 12 items. Raw scores are converted to standard age-related scores.
Muscle tone (prone extension and supine exion). To obtain an index of the par-
ticipants muscle tone and strength, the children were asked to assume and maintain
prone extension and supine exion positions. The prone extension assessment measures
the childs ability simultaneously to lift the head, exed arms, upper trunk, and extended
legs from a pronelying position. For the supine exion assessment, the children were
asked to assume a position of simultaneous exion against gravity of the knees, hips,
trunk, and neck from a supinelying position, where the top of the head had to
approximate the knees. The number of seconds a child maintained in each of these
positions was noted as the raw score. Childrens raw scores of the prone extension and
supine exion tests were highly correlated, r = .62; p < .0001. Therefore, the scores of
the two measures were summed to create an aggregate index referred to as muscle tone.
The developmental test of visualmotor integration (VMI). The VMI (Beery, 1989)
consists of 24 geometric forms to be copied in sequence from a test booklet. The
geometric forms become progressively more complex, and the score continues to
accumulate until all 24 forms have been successfully copied or until three consecutive
forms are copied incorrectly. The VMI is designed for children ranging from 2 to 15
years of age and comes with age-specic norms.
The VMI contains two supplemental standardized subtests. The rst is the
VisualSpatial Perception Test assessing visualspatial perception components
without the requirement of motor action. On this test, the child is shown a target gure
and is asked to select a matching gure from a set of two to seven alternatives. The
test consists of 24 gures that become progressively more complex. A childs score
on this test continues to accumulate until all 24 gures have been matched or until
three consecutive failures in matching occur. The second test is the Fine Motor Accu-
racy Test, in which the child is required to draw a clear, dark line while staying inside
a set of dened lines. There are 24 congurations that require progressively rened
motor accuracy and control.
Because the three subtests of the VMI were signicantly correlated with rs ranging
from .38 to .43, ps < .001, their z-scores were aggregated to form a visualmotor co-
ordination index.
Data Reduction of Motor Function Measures. Table 1 presents the intercorrelations
among the z-scores of the different motor function measures. Principal component
Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006 Social Development, 15, 2, 2006
302 Yair Bar-Haim and Orit Bart
analysis indicated that all the motor function measures loaded on a single factor with
Eigen value = 2.25, which explains 44.92 percent of the existing variance. Based on
the results of the intercorrelations and the factor analysis, we created a global index
of motor ability by aggregating the z-scores of all tested motor skills (i.e., balance,
kinesthesia, imitation of postures, muscle tone, and visualmotor coordination). Based
on their scores on the aggregated motor function index, children were assigned to one
of three groups. One group consisted of 22 children (11 girls) representing the bottom
quartile of the distribution on the combined motor aggregate. A second group con-
sisted of 22 well-coordinated children (16 girls), featuring in the top quartile of the
distribution. A third group consisted of 44 children (26 girls) whose scores on the
combined motor aggregate were in the middle quartiles of the distribution.
Results
Effects of Motor Ability, Gender, and Context on Frequencies of Social
and Solitary Play
A repeated-measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was computed with Motor
Ability (low, average, high) and Gender (Male, Female) as between-group factors
and Play Type (SolitaryPassive, Social Play, Social Reticence) as a within-subject
factor. Context (Indoor, Outdoor) served as a repeated within-subject factor.
Table 2 presents the means and standard deviations of social play, solitarypassive
play, and social reticence proportional frequencies by motor ability group and context.
Signicant main effects of play type and motor ability were qualied by a play-type-
by-motor-ability interaction, F(4,164) = 3.72, p < .01. In addition, a play-type-by-
context interaction was found, F(2,164) = 19.94, p < .0001. Main or interaction effects
involving gender were nonsignicant.
2
To further assess the above interactions,
separate follow-up ANOVAs for each play type were performed with motor ability
(low, average, high) as a between-groups factor and context (indoor, outdoor) as a
repeated within-subject factor.
Social Play. Children displayed higher frequency of social play outdoors (M = .62,
SD = .21) than indoors (M = .51, SD = .22), F(1,85) = 28.54, p < .001. In addition,
children with low motor abilities showed lower frequencies of social play (M = .47,
SD = .37) than children with average and high motor abilities (Ms = .57 and .66,
Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006 Social Development, 15, 2, 2006
Table 1. Intercorrelations (N = 88) between the Different Motor Function
Measures
Balance Kinesthesia Imitation Muscle Tone
Kinesthesia .16
Imitation .36*** .56***
Muscle Tone .31** .22* .17
VMI .26** .47*** .29** .25*
*p < .05, **p < .01,***p < .001.
Motor Function and Social Participation 303
SDs = .26 and .37, respectively), F(1,85) = 5.15, p < .01. The interaction between
motor ability and context was nonsignicant.
Social Reticence. Higher frequency of social reticence was displayed indoors (M =
.16, SD = .15) than outdoors (M = .13, SD = .11), F(1,85) = 4.64, p < .05. Children
with low motor ability showed a higher frequency of social reticence (M = .19, SD =
.22) than children with average and high motor abilities (Ms = .12 and .13, SDs = .15
and .22, respectively), F(1,85) = 3.11, p < .05. The interaction between motor ability
and context was again nonsignicant.
SolitaryPassive Play. Higher frequency of solitarypassive play was displayed
indoors (M = .15, SD = .16) than outdoors (M = .06, SD = .08), F(1,85) = 25.79,
p < .001. Children in the three motor ability groups did not differ in their frequency
of solitarypassive play, and no interaction between motor ability and context was
found.
SolitaryFunctional Play. Because solitaryfunctional play occurred in less than 3
percent of coding intervals, and because many children did not display this behavior
at all, this variable was recoded to create two groups of children (see Coplan et al.,
2001). One group consisted of children who did not demonstrate any solitary
functional behaviors (n = 40), the other group consisted of children who demonstrated
any number of solitaryfunctional behaviors (n = 48).
To assess the effect of context (indoor versus outdoor) on the occurrence of
solitaryfunctional behavior (none versus any), a Chi-square analysis was per-
formed. The results show that when solitaryfunctional play occurred, it occurred
more outdoors (46 percent) than indoors (31 percent), c
2
= 9.75, p < .01. More impor-
tantly, additional Chi-square analyses revealed that during outdoor free play, 68 percent
of the children with low motor ability displayed solitaryfunctional behavior, whereas
only 23 percent of children with high motor ability showed this behavior, c
2
= 9.17,
p < .01 (see Table 3 for cross-tabulations of indoor and outdoor solitaryfunctional
behavior by motor ability). During indoors free play, children with low motor ability
again displayed higher occurrence of solitaryfunctional behavior (46 percent) com-
pared with children with high motor ability (18 percent). This difference however did
not reach statistical signicance, c
2
= 3.90, p = .14.
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Table 2. Means and Standard Deviations (in parentheses) of Social Play,
SolitaryPassive Play, and Social Reticence Proportional Frequencies by Motor
Ability Group and Context
High Motor Mid Motor Low Motor
Outdoor Indoor Outdoor Indoor Outdoor Indoor
.74 (.17) .57 (.18) .62 (.20) .52 (.24) .50 (.21) .44 (.20) Social Play
.10 (.11) .15 (.13) .12 (.10) .13 (.16) .17 (.10) .21 (.15) Social Reticence
.03 (.06) .11 (.11) .08 (.10) .17 (.18) .05 (.07) .15 (.15) Solitary Passive
304 Yair Bar-Haim and Orit Bart
Consistency of Play Behavior Across Context
Pearson correlations between indoor and outdoor frequencies of social play, solitary
passive play, social reticence, and solitaryfunctional play revealed signicant con-
sistency of these play behaviors across context, rs = .63, .34, .47, and .34, respectively,
ps < .001.
Discussion
Taken together, the ndings from the present study indicate signicant associations
between social engagement and motor adeptness. Specically, in accord with predic-
tions, children with low motor abilities displayed a lower frequency of social play and
a higher frequency of social reticence compared with children of average or high motor
abilities. In addition, children with low motor abilities displayed a higher frequency
of solitaryfunctional play compared with children with high motor abilities. Finally,
as expected, motor abilities were not signicantly associated with solitarypassive
play, suggesting that motor function may not be a major factor in the development of
this pattern of solitary play behavior.
High frequency of solitaryfunctional play typically characterizes infants and young
toddlers (Piaget, 1962; Smilansky, 1968). Functional play provides young children
with the opportunity to manipulate objects in a sensorymotor fashion that informs
them about the physical qualities of objects (Cheah et al., 2001; Hutt, 1970). In
addition, repetitive sensorymotor behavior normally provides sensorymotor feed-
back that is important to the planning of goal-directed movement (Bundy, Lane &
Murray, 2002). Developmental deciencies in motor function may therefore result in
difculties obtaining good information about objects as well as poor feedback on body
motion. From a motor function perspective, children displaying a high frequency of
solitaryfunctional play may use repetitive movements to increase their diminished
sensorymotor feedback and to practice simple motor actions.
Poor motor ability also makes the physical activity associated with social engage-
ment more demanding, and may reduce a childs capacity to deal with the social
environment (Smyth & Anderson, 2000). The association between high frequency of
social reticence and poor motor abilities ts well with the documented links between
poor balance control and anxiety on the one hand (Balaban & Thayer, 2001; Balaban,
2002; Sklare, Konrad, Maser & Jacob, 2001), and social reticence and anxiety symp-
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Table 3. Cross-tabulations of Indoor and Outdoor Occurrence of Solitary
Functional Behavior by Motor Ability
Indoors Outdoors
SolitaryFunctional SolitaryFunctional
none any none any
Low Motor 12 10 7 15
Mid Motor 31 13 24 20
High Motor 18 4 17 5
Motor Function and Social Participation 305
toms on the other (e.g., Rubin & Asendorpf, 1993; Rubin, Chen, McDougall, Bowker,
& McKinnon, 1995). It may be the case that the observed anxious behavior typically
tied with social reticence partly reects low motor abilities. The child with poor motor
abilities may be motivated towards social interaction, but at the same time may feel
anxious about the motor challenges posed by social engagement. Such children may
nd themselves onlooking at other childrens play without the ability to motor plan
and execute the required actions for joining in. Alternatively, they may avoid the motor
challenges of goal-oriented social behavior and wander about unoccupied. Thinking
about approachwithdrawal motivational conicts (e.g., Asendorpf, 1990) from the
viewpoint of motor development may provide a new and viable approach to the assess-
ment and understanding of the factors that drive reticent behavior.
Neurophysiologic studies also suggest possible links between motor abilities and
social behavior. It is widely recognized that there are extensive reciprocal connections
between the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) and the amygdala, and that these two brain struc-
tures form a circuitry that is highly involved in various aspects of social behavior (for
reviews, see Amaral, Price, Pitkanen & Carmichael, 1992; Davidson, 2002; Fox, 1991;
Kagan, 1994). The PFC/amygdala circuitry is also tightly connected to motor plan-
ning and execution areas in the brain. For example, there is evidence suggesting func-
tional associations between the PFC, amygdala, and nucleus accumbens (NAc), the
latter being described as the brains motor-limbic interface (e.g., Goto & ODonnell,
2002). These associations seem to play an important role in integrating emotional and
contextual cues with frontal motor planning, to determine response selection in social
or otherwise challenging contexts (e.g., Burns, Annett, Kelley, Everitt & Robbins,
1996; Grace, 2000; Jackson & Moghaddam, 2001). Such transactions between these
brain structures may be compromised in some clinical conditions.
One example of a clinical condition that involves both motor and social decien-
cies is the spectrum of autistic disorders. The clinical prole of these disorders con-
tains, among other difculties, disturbances in reciprocal social interaction (APA,
1994), and clinically signicant motor impairments (e.g., Ghaziuddin, Butler, Tsai &
Ghaziuddin, 1994; Manjiviona & Prior, 1995; Rinehart, Bradshaw, Brereton & Tonge,
2001). It should be noted however, that motor difculties in autism are typically con-
sidered secondary to abnormal communication and interpersonal relationships. In con-
trast, in DCD, motor difculties and clumsiness are the dening features. Compared
with normally coordinated children, children with DCD are reported to display high
frequencies of onlooking and unoccupied behavior in the playground (e.g., Smyth &
Anderson, 2000, 2001), higher levels of anxiety (Skinner & Piek, 2001), and poor psy-
chosocial adjustment (Dewey, Kaplan, Crawford & Wilson, 2002). Such differences
in clinical focus may suggest that the comorbidity between social and motor
deciencies does not necessarily involve a similar etiology. The ndings from the
present study further suggest that even in a normative population, a mild and non-
clinical deciency in motor function may be associated with a signicant reduction in
social engagement.
The association between motor abilities and reticent behavior and solitary
functional play may also imply the possible application of motor-oriented interven-
tions for socially withdrawn children. Teachers, parents, and clinicians may wish to
consider a standard motor evaluation for children displaying excessive frequencies of
these solitary behaviors. Based on the results of such assessment, sensorymotor inter-
vention (e.g., occupational therapy, physiotherapy) may be applied along with con-
ventional psychotherapy. For example, a preliminary study in our laboratory revealed
Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006 Social Development, 15, 2, 2006
306 Yair Bar-Haim and Orit Bart
that twelve sessions of sensorymotor therapy can signicantly reduce anxiety symp-
toms in highly anxious children with balance deciencies (Karmon-Weisman, 2003).
It is important to note, however, that the design of the present study does not allow
the inference of causality in the interplay between motor function and social par-
ticipation. Some motor abilities may be regarded as prerequisites for the participation
in certain social activities. Alternatively, however, social play provides children with
the opportunity to practice and perfect motor skills. Increased social participation may
therefore account for the increased motor prociency in highly sociable children.
In addition, social behaviors are also inuenced by other skills such as language,
self-regulation, problem-solving ability, and interpersonal cooperation. Normally
developing children who are poor in motor skills may nd alternative strategies, such
as verbal communication, to achieve social engagement. A more accurate description
of these elements in relation to motor ability awaits further research attention.
The present ndings also revealed interesting simple main effects of context on play
behavior. Considerable consistency of play behavior was found across context,
indicating that children are likely to maintain their relative ranking within the peer
group in terms of indoor and outdoor frequencies of social and solitary behavior.
However, children also displayed higher frequencies of social play and solitary
functional play outdoors than indoors, and higher frequencies of social reticence and
solitarypassive play indoors than outdoors. These ndings suggest that different
physical settings may elicit different types of play behavior (Barbour, 1999).
Spinard et al. (2004) speculated that solitary play exhibited during outdoor
activities may be less appropriate than this type of behavior during quiet indoor activ-
ities. Our data indicate that indeed solitarypassive play and reticent behavior were
more frequent during indoor than outdoor activity. However, in contrast to Spinard,
Eisenberg, Harris, Hanish, Fabes, and Kupanoffs (2004) suggestion, solitary
functional play was signicantly more frequent outdoors than indoors. It could be that
solitaryfunctional play, when enacted outdoors, is in fact perceived as appropriate
and functional. For example, we coded the rather normative actions of solitary swing-
ing or bouncing a ball outdoors as solitaryfunctional play.
Another aspect of the associations between motor abilities and social and solitary
behavior is gender differences. Similar to previous studies (e.g., Coplan & Rubin,
1998; Coplan et al., 1994, 2001; Rubin, 1982) the present study found no gender dif-
ferences in the occurrence of social play, solitarypassive play, reticent behavior, and
solitaryfunctional play. In addition, we found no gender differences in the tested
motor abilities. Furthermore, in the present study, no signicant gender differences
were observed in the pattern of associations between motor ability and social or soli-
tary behavior. We therefore conclude that, based on the present data, gender may not
be a signicant contributor to the association between motor ability and social behav-
ior. However, the present ndings should be interpreted with caution, because sample
size may have limited the power for detecting gender differences. Fabes, Martin, and
Hanish (2003) showed that boys play is more active, forceful, and stereotyped com-
pared to girls play, and that this pattern is even more exaggerated in group settings.
Therefore, boys with low motor abilities may nd it more difcult than girls with low
motor abilities do to participate in active group play. Further research is needed in
order to clarify this issue.
In summary, the results of the present study provide preliminary evidence for an
association between individual differences in childrens motor ability and variations
in their social and solitary behavior. Specically, stable individual differences in motor
Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006 Social Development, 15, 2, 2006
Motor Function and Social Participation 307
capabilities may be viewed as a temperamental factor contributing to the maintenance
of individual variations in social behavior. An important issue for future research
would be to assess the neural substrates of the associations between brain areas linked
with nonsocial and inhibited temperament (e.g., Fox et al., 2001; Fox, Schmidt,
Calkins, Rubin & Coplan, 1996; Kagan et al., 1988) and activity in specic motor
control areas. In addition, it would be of interest to assess the relative and com-
bined contributions of motor abilities and other important factors that also explain
individual differences in childrens social and solitary behavior. Specically, motor
capabilities should be considered along with more traditionally cited factors such as
temperament (e.g., Burgess, Marshall, Rubin & Fox, 2003; Fox & Calkins, 1993; Fox
& Henderson, 1999; Fox et al., 2001; Henderson et al., 2004; Kagan, 1989), parental
behavior (e.g., Ladd & Golter, 1988; Ladd & Hart, 1992; Rubin, 1995), parentchild
relationships (e.g., Booth, Rose-Krasnor, McKinnon & Rubin, 1994; Rose-Krasnor,
Rubin, Booth & Coplan, 1996), cultural beliefs and norms (e.g., Chen, Hastings,
Rubin, Chen, Cen & Stewart, 1998; Chen, Rubin & Li, 1995; Rubin, 1998), and status
within the peer group (e.g., Harrist, Zaia, Bates, Dodge & Pettit, 1997; Rubin et al.,
1993).
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Notes
1. Solitaryfunctional play is typically aggregated with solitarydramatic play to form a category
labeled solitaryactive behavior. In the present study however, we observed practically no incidence of
dramatizing while playing alone in the company of peers. Therefore, we treated solitaryfunctional play
as a separate category.
2. Although we entered Gender into the analysis as a between-subjects factor, it is important to note
that the sample size may have prevented a fully adequate assessment of the effect of this variable. We reran
the above-described analysis with Gender entered as a covariate. The results were practically the same as
those reported in the text.
Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006 Social Development, 15, 2, 2006

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