Building From a Stable Foundation? Understanding Stability Skill Proficiency in British Children in the First Year of School

Duncan, MJ, Crotti, M, Davies, KF ORCID: 0000-0002-1853-9667, Africa, E and Martins, R (2026) Building From a Stable Foundation? Understanding Stability Skill Proficiency in British Children in the First Year of School. Child: Care, Health and Development, 52 (3). ISSN 0305-1862

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Abstract

Objective
Stability skill proficiency is purported to be below the norm in children. However, no process-oriented proficiency data are available examining this issue. This study assessed stability skill proficiency in British children.

Materials and Methods
Stability skill proficiency of 243 (116 boys and 127 girls) English children aged 4–5 years was assessed using the Test of Stability Skills. Stability skill proficiency was classed as proficient, near proficient and poor.

Results
Approximately 60% did not achieve proficiency in any of the three stability skills. Only three children (1.2%) were proficient in all three stability skills. Individual skill proficiency was poor, with proficiency of the roll, rock and back support being 10.3%, 4.9% and 8.2%, respectively.

Conclusion
This study provides preliminary normative data for process-oriented stability skill in British children aged 4–5 years. As stability skill is a prerequisite for the development of other gross motor skills, such information is important in effective targeting for stability skill intervention.

Summary
Stability skills are a key, but often overlooked, aspect of fundamental movement skills, with the predominant approach in the literature focusing on locomotor and object control skills.

Although some product-oriented approaches to motor competence assessment include balance subscales, to date, no studies have reported process-oriented data relating to stability skills in children aged 4–5 years.

This study presents preliminary process-based data on stability skill, using the Test of Stability Skills, for Reception-aged children living in high deprivation in England. The results suggest that stability skill proficiency is poor, at approximately 10%, 5% and 8% for the roll, rock and back support skills, respectively.

Future work may want to document stability skill proficiency in a more representative sample of children in England to verify the claims of low proficiency suggested in the current work.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	11 Medical and Health Sciences; 13 Education; 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences; Developmental & Child Psychology; Pediatrics; 32 Biomedical and clinical sciences; 39 Education; 52 Psychology
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB1501 Primary Education Q Science > QP Physiology R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC1200 Sports Medicine
Divisions:	Sport and Exercise Sciences
Publisher:	Wiley
Date of acceptance:	20 March 2026
Date of first compliant Open Access:	7 April 2026
Date Deposited:	07 Apr 2026 14:20
Last Modified:	07 Apr 2026 14:20
DOI or ID number:	10.1111/cch.70270
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/28337

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