Motor difficulties from childhood to midlife: A 40-year cohort study

There are few studies of the persistence of childhood motor difficulties (MD) into adulthood. To investigate the association of childhood MD with motor skills and body mass index (BMI) in midlife. We studied 324 adults aged 40 from a cohort born in 1971–1974. At age 9, they had undergone the Test of Motor Impairment, used to classify them into groups: childhood MD (cMD), borderline cMD (bcMD), or no cMD. At age 40, participants comprised 23 with cMD, 47 with bcMD, and 254 with no cMD. Participants completed motor tests of balance, manual dexterity, and visuomotor speed, followed by recording of their BMI. At age 40, the cMD group performed worse than the no-cMD group on all motor tests (p