Effects of Physical Activity on Children's Motor Skill Development: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials.

Findings support the causal evidence regarding the effects of PA on motor skill development in children. Notable limitations of this review included heterogeneity of measurement protocols and assessment tools used to test children's motor skills across studies, a wide range of PA intervention dose across studies, and the lack of power analyses and long-term follow-up assessments in individual studies to discern appropriate sample sizes and long-term effectiveness, respectively. To further strengthen the evidence in this emerging field, we advocate for future RCTs to employ a priori power analyses, long-term follow-up measurements, and more exergaming-based interventions to allow for comparisons with traditional PA interventions, to explore the dose response and moderating relationships between PA and motor skill development in childhood, and to utilize homogenous assessment instruments to allow for more rigorous, quantitative syntheses.