Abstract:

Early childhood development is a complex, multicomponent process in which genetics, environment and their interaction, i.e. the bio-psycho-social context, can be understood as a system (Britto et al., 2013).

Special educational counselling, early development and care is one of the basic tasks of public education, as a specialised pedagogical service (Act CXC of 2011 on National Public Education, § 18, 2/a). Its task is complex early childhood prevention, counselling and development to promote the development of the child, strengthen the competences of the family and support the social integration of the child and his/her family from the time of establishing the entitlement to care (EMMI Decree No. 15/2013 (II. 26.) on the Functioning of Pedagogical Specialist Service Institutions, § 4).

A large body of research shows that investing in the early years of life is beneficial at both individual and societal levels (Heckman, 2008a, 2008b, Doyle et al., 2009). However, in order to design effective interventions, knowledge of the child's personality and ability development is a crucial dimension.

Present research aims to investigate early childhood development from the perspective of psychomotor and behavioural regulation in typically and atypically developing children aged 3-7 years. Our aim is to shed light on the developmental specificities of the alpha generation in relation to the early years of life and to investigate the relationships between movement and behaviour in neurotypical and atypical developmental trajectories.

It is assumed that the development of the children included in the study varies between typical and atypical development.
We assume that behavioural control problems are becoming more common not only in atypical but also in typical development.
We hypothesise that children with abnormal motor development are also more likely to have behavioural control difficulties.
We hypothesise that it is the lack of prosociality and hyperactive-impulsive manifestations that pose the greatest challenge to parents or teachers of children of today.

Our study included 150 parents or teachers of children aged 3-7 years old (gender in balance of the sample). 30% of the children studied had a diagnosis of SEN (mild intellectual disability, emotional behavioral disorder, ADHD, ASD).

In a parent/teacher sample, 3 questionnaires were completed: a Child Development Questionnaire (Keresi, 2020), the MABC-2 Checklist (Henderson, Sugden and Barnett, 2007) and the SDQ questionnaire.

By analysing the responses obtained along gender, age and typical-atypical developmental trajectories, we concluded that differences in motor skills and problems with behaviour are not only found in atypically developing, but also in typically developing children. The older the child, the more pronounced the behavioural problems, especially in the areas of hyperactivity and prosociality, but no differences were found between boys and girls along the variables studied.

Keywords:

Early childhood, motor difficulties, emotional-behavioral problems, intervention, questionnaires.