Motor Competence
Table 2 also contains the descriptive statistics of the scores obtained by both groups in the Mabc-2 battery, and the differences between them.
Statistical correlations were calculated in every group (Table 3) to determine the association of primary reflexes scores with Total MC and with the Macb-2 dimensions.
———————————-Table 3——————————-
In group A, negative and statistically significant correlations were found between the overall score of the Macb-2 battery and the reflexes ATNR and MR. In addition, significant correlations were obtained between MR and STNR reflexes and manual dexterity.
In group B, negative and statistically significant correlations were found between the overall score of the Macb-2 battery and all the reflexes assessed. These results seem to indicate inverse association between variables. Only ATNR reflex showed a positive association with aiming and catching (r = 0.36), which should not be disregarded.
Crawling Pattern
The Table 4 shows the scores obtained for every reflex measured, differentiating between those participants who had crawled and those who had not.
—————————————Table 4————————————
Significant differences were found in all the reflexes, with small effect sizes between children who had developed the crawling pattern and those who had not.
Besides, Mann-Whitney U test was conducted to analyze the differences in the Mabc-2 battery scores between children who had developed the crawling pattern and those who had not (Table 4). Statistically significant differences were found, with medium effect sizes, in all dimensions and in the overall score of the Mabc-2 between children who had developed the crawling pattern and those who had not.
Finally, in group A, 91.1% of children had not developed the crawling pattern, while in group B only 37.5% had not crawled. When comparing between groups, significant differences were obtained in this variable (U = 334.000, p < .001).