Irish children’s motor skills not developing as they should, study finds

New study results paint a worrying picture.

A new study claims that Irish children are not meeting their developmental milestones when it comes to motor skills. Health researchers at DCU’s School of Health and Human Performance tested a sample of 253 Irish primary school children and found that 36 percent of the children aged between 11 and 12 were under-performing in simple tasks like drawing shapes and sorting cards. “These basic tasks have been used for years to establish, and they’re well established, norms of values for young children for tasks they do in everyday life and in school,” lead researcher, David Gaul, said of the concerning findings. “It is particularly alarming that these basic skills are not being developed at the rate that they have previously been developed.” The research found that 13 percent of second class students and 14 percent of fourth class students also had difficulties in these basic tasks.