The Painted Playgrounds Aim 2 (Assessment) project will examine the effects of a stenciling intervention aimed at increasing physical activity and improving fundamental motor skill functioning of preschool aged children. 72 children from local licensed childcare centers will participate in individual assessments at baseline and follow-up 6-8 weeks later. Assessments include height/weight, surveys and wearing a physical activity monitor (accelerometer) for 7 days. A parent/legal guardian will provide consent for their child to participate and will also complete a brief survey about their child's lifestyle and habits.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
OTHER
Masking
SINGLE
Enrollment
51
The stencils (hopscotch, agility trail, foursquare, bullseye, etc.) will be painted on the playgrounds at each childcare center. A toolkit and training video will be distributed to staff at each center to aid in instructing the children on how to perform the tasks.
Pennington Biomedical Research Center
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States
Change in Moderate to Vigorous Activity (MVPA) During Recess
To test the effectiveness of a promising (cost-effective, easily scalable) playground stenciling intervention to increase physical activity, change in MVPA during recess will be measured using accelerometers. The main outcome variable will be percentage of recess time spent in MVPA, measured objectively using a physical activity monitor (i.e. accelerometer).
Time frame: Baseline and follow-up (6 to 8 weeks after playground stenciling)
Change in Fundamental Motor Skill Development
The Test of Gross Motor Development, 3rd edition (TGMD-3) was utilized to assess fundamental motor skills. The test consists of a total of 13 skills which are designed to assess locomotor (6 skills) and ball (7 skills). Children complete two trials, and if they meet the specified performance criteria, they are scored a 1. If they fail to meet the criteria, they are scored a zero. Trials 1 and 2 are added to get the raw scores of locomotor and ball skill. For locomotor, this range is from 0-46; for ball skills, children can score from 0-54. Raw scores are then converted to scaled scores based on the TGMD-3 age and gender charts. The scaled scores are added to determine a total scaled score. The total scaled score has a percentile ranking to determine what percentile the child is in (\<1,\>99). The post-TGMD-3 total percentile was subtracted for the change score from the baseline percentile. A positive value indicates an improvement in fundamental motor skills, where
Time frame: Baseline and follow-up (6 to 8 weeks after playground stenciling)
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