Introduction

supporting children’s physical and mental health is one of the best ways to invest in the country’s social and economic development. In addition to being the foundation and foundation of society, children are the most sensitive and vulnerable group in society to malnutrition and resource shortages. They also need appropriate living conditions due to their rapid growth and maximum natural growth and development, and any adverse factor can have a negative impact on their growth. One of the most important environmental factors in the development of children’s motor abilities and skills is how the early and sensitive years of a child’s life are spent. In other words, the child’s motor experiences during this period of time provide the foundation for the child’s later knowledge and learning. Among these, socio-economic status is one of the most important environmental factors that affects the fetus, newborn, and child in different periods before birth, at birth, and after birth, which also affects motor development. However, one of the important topics in recent research on children is the development of perceptual-motor skills, which has received special attention from child specialists, parents, and physical activity instructors, as perceptual-motor skills are the foundation of advanced sports skills. These skills should be addressed in preschool and elementary school, as failure to achieve advanced stages in the implementation of these skills will lead to problems not only in the development of secondary skills but also in the development of these skills at older ages, and will have direct and indirect consequences on the individual's ability to perform task-specific skills in the specific movement stage. It has also been shown that the effective functioning of perceptual-motor abilities in the context of children's development in the three areas of cognitive, emotional, and psychomotor, and in general, the developmental process of movement is very essential. On the other hand, the results of some studies confirm the interaction of perceptual-motor development and social development of individuals. In the aforementioned studies, it is believed that the process of socialization of children begins with their early motor activities and provides the conditions for motor growth and development in childhood and their sports participation in the coming years. Therefore, based on the importance of the subject, the question arises whether socio-economic status can cause changes in motor and perceptual-motor skills in 7-8-year-old children?

Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted in a quasi-experimental design and in terms of its applied purpose, it was a causal comparative study. The statistical population of the present study consisted of 7-8-year-old children in Marand city. To collect data, cluster sampling method and information from the socio-economic status questionnaire were used from two areas with different socio-economic status (appropriate and inappropriate) who voluntarily participated in this study. It should be noted that before starting the study, the subjects and their parents were assured that all information obtained from them would be protected and that they could withdraw from the study at any time. Accordingly, 113 people were selected and placed in two groups with appropriate (n=55) and inappropriate (n=58) socio-economic status. It should be noted that all stages of the test were carried out under the same and standard conditions from 8 to 10 am. To collect data in this study, a socio-economic status questionnaire (Ghodtnama et al., 2013) with acceptable face and construct validity (reliability coefficient 0.83) was used. Based on the information obtained from the socio-economic status of the families, the Broninek-Ozeretsky test (fine skills including: putting coins in two boxes with two hands and stringing beads with the dominant hand) and the Stay in Step screening test (gross skills including: balancing on one leg, hitting a volleyball on the ground and catching it in 20 seconds, hopping with one leg at a certain distance and running 50 meters) were used to measure motor skills.

Data analysis was performed using mean, standard deviation, and discriminant analysis test (which is a predictive model for group membership and consists of discriminant functions that achieve the best distinction between groups through linear combination of predictor variables) in SPSS23 software at a significance level of p≤0.05.

Results: In addition to the existence of a focal diagnostic function that was identified during the diagnostic analysis (eigenvalue = 0.438), the Wilks Lambda statistic showed that the model was significant (Wilks Lambda statistic = 0.695, Chi-square = 177.37, p = 0.0001). This function was able to explain 31 percent (0.31 = 0.69-1) of the total variation between the two groups. Also, the contribution of each standardized independent variable in the model showed that the number of confounders = 64 with no presence in the combination with a coefficient of 0.735 had the greatest effect and the variable number of confounders = 16 with presence in the feature with a coefficient of 0.002 had the least effect in creating the diagnostic function.

Finally, the success of the diagnostic function in correctly classifying the observations was examined. The classification results showed that the group of suitable social conditions was correctly predicted by perceptual-motor variables with 76.4% (42 people) and the group of unsuitable social conditions was correctly predicted by 65.5% (38 people).

Conclusion: Therefore, according to the results of the present study, it can be said that socioeconomic status can affect the development of motor and perceptual-motor skills in several ways. 1: Family factors such as the child's parents, low level of education of the mother and father, 2: Having enough money to cover the costs of sports, motor programs, leisure time and the necessary equipment. 3: Having enough time for parents to cooperate with children in playing and exercising. As Ziviani et al. (2006) pointed out the multiple costs of participating in organized sports activities and stated that only families with high income and education level are able to cover its costs. It seems that for families with poor socioeconomic status, paying for and purchasing the necessary equipment for physical activity acts as a barrier to their children's participation in physical activity and ultimately delays the development of their motor and perceptual-motor skills compared to other groups. In general, socioeconomic status, as the most important environmental factor examined in this study, affected the development of children's motor and perceptual-motor skills.

Research limitations:

Among the limitations of this research is the lack of control over the stressful conditions of the subjects outside of training, the limitedness of the examined sample and as a result the problem of generalizing it to other athletes in different disciplines, the existing research gap in relation to the study of the research variables, the research sample.

Keywords: Socio-economic status, motor skills, perceptual-motor skills, girls.

Ethical Considerations

Compliance with ethical guidelines

The ethical principles observed in the article, such as the informed consent of the participants, the confidentiality of information, the permission of the participants to cancel their participation in the research. Ethical approval was obtained from the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Tabriz.

Funding

This study was extracted from the Projects of first author at Department of Motor Behavior of University of Tabriz.

Authors' contribution

Authors contributed equally in preparing this article.

Conflict of interest

The authors declared no conflict of interest.