The Relationship between Motor Coordination Skills and Cognitive and Affective Empathy Ability in Children

The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between the performance of children in motor coordination skills and their ability in cognitive and affective empathy. The participants contained 45 students aged 7-9 years from Tehran elementary schools. Movement Assessment Battery for Children-second edition (MABC-2) was used to asses motor coordination skills including manual dexterity, aiming, catching, and balance. Moreover, cognitive and affective empathy were evaluated employing Griffith Empathy Measure (GEM). Univariate and multiple linear regression revealed that manual dexterity and balance were positively and significantly correlated with affective and cognitive empathy explaining 7 and 11 percent of their variance, respectively. Moreover, manual dexterity was positively and significantly correlated with general score of empathy, while not controlling for the other variables. Monitoring motor coordination skills, fine motor skills in particular, seems necessary to prevent deficits in development of social skills such as empathy.