The Effect of Movement Education Program on Static Balance Skills of Pre-School Children

This study aimed at evaluating the effect of movement education program on static balance skills of preschool children (5-7 years). 80 preschool children in total – 40 in experimental group (20 males and 20 females) and 40 (20 males and 20 females) in control group – were included in this project. While children in the experimental group were administered the movement education program for one hour and three days per a week during 3 months, control group received the regular curriculum. The movement education program was composed of fundamental motor skills, posture exercises and games. Static balance platform was used to assess the static balance ability. SPSS package program was utilized for the statistical analyses. Independent T Test was conducted to compare the results of experimental and control groups. Paired Samples T Test was used for differences between preand post-tests in both groups. Significance level was taken as (p<0.05). According to the results of the statistical analysis; the static balance values of the experiment group in the preand posttests were found significant (p<0.001) while the static balance values of the control group in the preand posttests were not found significant (p<0.05). The final static balance test values were found significant for the experiment group (p<0.001). The results tell us that movement education program which was implemented positively affected static balance of preschool children.