1 Department of Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) Program, McMaster University, ON, Canada.
2 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, ON, Canada.
Percept Mot Skills. 2019 Aug;126(4):656-674. doi: 10.1177/0031512519846769. Epub 2019 May 8.
Poor motor coordination in childhood has been associated in adulthood with more negative affect, less positive affect, and an increased risk of psychopathology. While survivors of extremely low birth weight (ELBW; < 1,000 grams) are more likely to manifest poor motor coordination than people born at normal birth weight (NBW; > 2,500 g), they have had better mental health outcomes than those with NBW who have motor difficulties. How emotion is experienced is an important risk factor for mental illness; yet, little is known about the affective experience of survivors of ELBW who also have poor motor coordination. In this longitudinal study, we examined interactions between birth weight status and childhood motor coordination on affective experience among 88 ELBW and 89 NBW participants. We first assessed childhood motor coordination at eight years of age, using the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, and we later gathered self-report data regarding affective style, using the Positive and Negative Affect Scedule and the Affective Styles Questionnaire, when these participants were 30-35 years of age. We found a statistically significant interaction between motor coordination and birth weight status. As motor coordination worsened among ELBW survivors, positive affect increased, while we observed the opposite trend in NBW participants ( < 0.05). There was no interaction for negative affect. Positive affect may contribute to previous findings of better relative adult mental health among ELBW survivors with poor childhood motor coordination. Strategies aimed at optimizing positive affect may be fruitful for optimizing mental health outcomes among preterm survivors and others with reduced motor proficiency.
儿童期运动协调能力差与成年后更多的负面情绪、较少的正面情绪以及精神病理学风险增加有关。极低出生体重（ELBW；<1000 克）幸存者比正常出生体重（NBW；>2500 克）幸存者更有可能表现出运动协调能力差，但他们的心理健康状况要好于那些有 NBW 且运动困难的幸存者。情绪体验是精神疾病的一个重要危险因素；然而，对于运动协调能力差的 ELBW 幸存者的情感体验，人们知之甚少。在这项纵向研究中，我们研究了 88 名 ELBW 和 89 名 NBW 参与者的出生体重状况和儿童期运动协调能力对情感体验的相互作用。我们首先在 8 岁时使用布鲁因克斯-奥塞雷茨基运动技能测试评估儿童期运动协调能力，之后当这些参与者 30-35 岁时，我们使用积极和消极情绪量表以及情感风格问卷收集关于情感风格的自我报告数据。我们发现运动协调能力和出生体重状况之间存在统计学显著的相互作用。随着 ELBW 幸存者的运动协调能力恶化，积极情绪增加，而 NBW 参与者则观察到相反的趋势（<0.05）。消极情绪没有相互作用。积极情绪可能有助于之前发现的运动协调能力差的 ELBW 幸存者相对较好的成年心理健康。旨在优化积极情绪的策略可能对优化早产儿幸存者和其他运动能力较差者的心理健康结果富有成效。
