Lopes, Vitor P.Maia, José A.R.2011-05-032011-05-032006Lopes, Vítor P.; Maia, José A.R. (2006). Changes in body coordination in children form Azores islands: a 3 years longitudinal study. In 11th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science. Lausannehttp://hdl.handle.net/10198/4143The purpose of this study was: (1) to analyse longitudinally the changes in body coordination (BC) in children during 3 years (6 to a 9 years old); and to analyse the stability of BC. Sample size comprises 142 girls (6,37±0,31 years old at the first evaluation and 8,42±0,35 at the third), and 143 boys (6,44±0,29 years old at the first evaluation and 8,34±0,39 at the third). BC was evaluated according to the body coordination test battery (KörperkoordinationsTest für Kinder) developed by Kiphard and Schilling (1974). The battery comprises four tests: backward balance (BB), jumping sideways (JS), hopping on one leg (HL), and shifting platforms (SP), from the 4 tests it is obtain a motor quotient (MQ) that permit the classification of children BC. A mixed ANOVA was used to analyze the changes along the 3 years and the differences between boys and girls. Intra-class correlation coefficient was used to analyze the stability in the all items test battery. In both boys and girls and in all items of test battery there were significant increases during the 3 years. In MQ the results show a linear increase in girls and no significant changes in boys. The BC level was higher in boys than in girls at all 3 evaluations, although in both boys and girls the level was low. It was found moderate (0.50) to strong (0.80) stability in both boys and girls. In summary: (1) boys had a higher BC level than girls; there were a linear increase in MQ in girls. BC shows moderate to strong stability.engconference object