Prematurity is a biological risk factor for infant motor development and the interaction among this risk with sex and task specificity hasn't been investigated yet. The aim was to verify the effect of prematurity in gross motor performance of children in locomotors and object control skills. Twenty boys and forty girls from preschools, with mean age of 4.5 years (SD = 0.7), were separated into premature group (n = 30, mean gestational age = 31.7 weeks SD = 2.8) and control group (n = 30, gestational age> 37 weeks) and their gross motor development was assessed by TGMD-2. In general, premature children were able to achieve the same level of gross motor performance when compared with children born at term. When the analysis took into account sex and task specificity, the findings suggested that being a girl can to affect the early development of the object control motor skills.
Premature; Motor skills; Preschoolers
