Factors Influencing Gross Motor Development in Young Children in an Urban Child Welfare System

In Brief Purpose: To determine whether young children involved with child welfare (CW) have gross motor (GM) delay; to examine relationships between GM skills and the influence of multiple factors on GM skills. Methods: One hundred seventy-six children involved with CW received GM assessment, physical examinations, and caseworker interviews. Descriptive statistics, correlations, t tests, analysis of variance and covariance, and multiple regression analyses were completed. Results: GM scores, lower than population norms, were associated with growth parameters. Children in kinship care had significantly higher GM scores compared with children in foster care and those with in-home protective services when adjusted for differences in time in CW. Abuse/neglect, medical neglect, and parental substance abuse produced lower scores; referral for abandonment produced higher scores. Age was most strongly related to GM outcome, with multiple regression explaining 19% of GM variance. Conclusion: Children involved with CW have lower mean GM scores than population norms. Several factors specific to CW experiences may influence GM outcome. Children involved with the child welfare system have lower gross motor scores than population norms. The authors found several factors contribute to this finding; abuse/neglect, medical neglect, and parental substance abuse produced lower scores.