Gender differences in the attainment of motor skills on the Movement Assessment Battery for Children.

Differences in the age of attainment of motor skills between boys and girls have been established in previous studies. It has been noted that boys develop ball skills earlier than girls and that girls acquire manual dexterity before boys. The purpose of this study was to determine if the same differences could be identified in a group of typically developing seven and eight year old children using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children Test (MABC Test). In this study, a physiotherapist administered the MABC Test to 103 randomly selected children (boys-60, girls-43). The MABC Test examines children's motor skills in the areas of manual dexterity, ball skills and balance. Results were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The ANOVA results indicated significant differences between boys' and girls' ball skill scores and manual dexterity scores.