Avaliação do desenvolvimento das habilidades cognitivas e motoras em alunos de educação infantil

Abstract

This study aimed to create a preliminary version of a measure to assess the development of preschool´s cognitive and psychomotor abilities, the Teste de Habilidades e Conhecimentos Pre-alfabetização (THCP). The instrument consists of five subscales,which evaluate five abilities relevant to learning, namely: perceptual-motor skills (PMS),language, quantitative thinking (QT), memory and focused attention (FA). The sample was composed by 174 children (age 3-7 years) of public and private educational institutions, from metropolitan area of Belo Horizonte City. Children were evaluated using THCP and parents provided data about health and psychosocial aspects of their offspring. For a subsample (n = 100), the psychomotor development was also evaluated with the Exame Neurológico Evolutivo (ENE). In general, the THCP has adequate psychometric properties, with good index of validity and reliability. The factor structure for each subscale was approximately as expected and the test as a whole has a single factor that explains 37% of the variance. Regarding the associations between the cognitive and psychomotor development, we found significant positive associations between - HPM,Memory, AC, and total score of THCP and some aspects of psychomotor development - static and dynamic balance, appendicular coordination and overall score on ENE. A multiple regression analysis was performed to determine which factors can predict psychomotor development. The best model (R2 = 0, 375) included the following independent variables: age, age of onset of gait and memory. No sex differences were found for any cognitive skills. Regarding socioeconomic status (SES), it was found differences on QT, with better performance for the top SES group. Significant positive associations were found between the subscales of THCP and parental stimulation (reading stories, and parental education) and stimulation in school (private school students showed higher performance than public schools in almost all abilities assessed). Overall, results indicate that THCP is a suitable tool for assessing children in preschool. However, new studies with larger and representative samples are needed aiming to verify the association of skills assessed in preschool years and performance in basic education.