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Introduction: Young children generally show contralateral associated movements (CAMs) when they are making an effort to perform a unimanual task. CAM and motor speed are two relevant aspects of motor proficiency in young children. These CAMs decrease over age, while motor speed increases. As both CAM and motor speed are associated with age, we were interested in whether these two parameters are also linked with each other.Method: In this study, three manual dexterity tasks with the dominant and nondominant hands (pegboard, repetitive hand, and repetitive finger tasks) were used to investigate the effect of covariates (age, sex, socioeconomic status, total physical activity) on both motor speed and CAMs in preschool children.Results: There was a significant age effect for both motor speed and CAMs in all tasks when the dominant hand was used. When the nondominant hand was used, the decrease in the intensity of CAMs over age was not consistently significant. The influence of physical activity and socioeconomic status on motor proficiency was small. Furthermore, the correlation between motor speed and CAMs, although significant, was low.Conclusions: Motor speed improved with age over three fine motor tasks in preschool children. Decrease in CAMs was observed but it was not always significant when the nondominant hand was working. Motor speed and CAMs were only weakly associated. We conclude that the excitatory pathways responsible for motor speed and inhibitory pathways responsible for reducing CAMs occupy two different domains in the brain and therefore mostly behave independently of each other. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Question: Regional differences in physical activity in school-aged children and adults even within one country with the same political and health care system have been observed and could not be explained by sociodemographic or individual variables. We analysed whether such differences were already present in preschool children., Methods: Swiss children from 84 childcare centres in five cantons (Aargau, Bern, Fribourg, Vaud, Zurich) comprising about 50% of the population of the country participated. Physical activity was quantified with accelerometers (ActiGraph, wGT3X-BT) and potential correlates were assessed with measurements at the childcare centre or questionnaires. Mixed regression models were used to test associations between potential correlates of total physical activity (TPA), moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), light physical activity (LPA) or sedentary behaviour with a special focus on regional differences., Results: 394 of 476 children (83%) provided valid physical activity data (at least 2 weekdays and 1 weekend day with 10 h recording; mean age 3.9 ± 0.7 years, 54% boys) with 26% and 74% living in the French- and German-speaking parts of Switzerland, respectively. Days consisted of (mean ± standard deviation) 1.5 ± 0.5 h MVPA, 5.0 ± 0.6 h LPA, and 6.3 ± 0.8 h sedentary behaviour with an average of 624 ± 150 counts/min TPA. TPA and MVPA (but not sedentary behaviour or LPA) increased with age, were higher in boys and children with better motor skills. Despite controlling for individual characteristics, familial factors and childcare exposure, children from the French-speaking part of Switzerland showed 13% less TPA, 14% less MVPA, 6% less LPA and 8% more sedentary behaviour than German-speaking children., Conclusion: Beside motor skills and non-modifiable individual factors, the regional sociocultural difference was the most important correlate of phyical activity and sedentary behaviour. Therefore, regionally adapted public health strategies may be needed.