{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,12]],"date-time":"2026-09-12T08:06:11Z","timestamp":1789200371267,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":39,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,8]],"date-time":"2026-09-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1788825600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Percept Mot Skills"],"abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    <jats:bold>Background:<\/jats:bold>\n                    Motor competence shapes childhood health, but its heterogeneity in low- and middle-income countries remains unclear.\n                    <jats:bold>Purpose:<\/jats:bold>\n                    This study used unsupervised clustering to identify distinct motor performance profiles among Nigerian school-age children.\n                  <\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    <jats:bold>Research Design:<\/jats:bold>\n                    A cross-sectional study.\n                  <\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    <jats:bold>Study Sample:<\/jats:bold>\n                    The study included a convenience sample of 200 school-age children aged 6\u201316 years from five schools in Ebonyi State, Nigeria.\n                  <\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    <jats:bold>Data Collection and Analysis:<\/jats:bold>\n                    Motor performance was assessed using 15 motor tasks. K-means and hierarchical clustering were applied to 17 features, including motor tasks, age, and sex, with cluster validity assessed using internal validation indices and between-cluster differences examined using the Mann\u2013Whitney\n                    <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">U<\/jats:italic>\n                    test or Kruskal\u2013Wallis\n                    <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">H<\/jats:italic>\n                    test, as appropriate. A Bernoulli mixture model (BMM) was applied as a model-based validation approach specifically designed for binary data.\n                  <\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    <jats:bold>Results:<\/jats:bold>\n                    Across clustering approaches, approximately 31\u201336% of children were classified within a motor-delayed performance phenotype characterized by an age\u2013performance mismatch: despite being chronologically oldest (median age 14.0 years in k-means and 12.0 years in hierarchical clustering), this group demonstrated selectively reduced coordination and balance performance. Team balance on beam consistently emerged as the strongest task-level discriminator, showing the largest performance gap in k-means clustering (54.2% vs. 86.6\u201386.9%,\n                    <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">p<\/jats:italic>\n                    &lt; 0.001), and robust separation in hierarchical clustering (35.4% vs. 94.0%,\n                    <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">p<\/jats:italic>\n                    &lt; 0.001). The BMM corroborated this two-profile structure (BIC-optimal two-class solution; \u223c31% lower-performing), with perfect classification stability (ARI = 1.0). The motor-delayed group also exhibited higher prevalence of reported disabilities (16.9\u201319.4%), prior therapy exposure (15.4\u201319.4%), and lower sports participation compared with higher-performing groups. Hierarchical clustering demonstrated stronger between-cluster discrimination in total motor score than k-means (\n                    <jats:inline-formula>\n                      <mml:math xmlns:mml=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1998\/Math\/MathML\" overflow=\"scroll\">\n                        <mml:mrow>\n                          <mml:msubsup>\n                            <mml:mi>\u03b7<\/mml:mi>\n                            <mml:mi>H<\/mml:mi>\n                            <mml:mn>2<\/mml:mn>\n                          <\/mml:msubsup>\n                        <\/mml:mrow>\n                      <\/mml:math>\n                    <\/jats:inline-formula>\n                    = 0.745 vs. 0.059) and identified one small outlier cluster (\n                    <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">n<\/jats:italic>\n                    = 2), while cluster composition did not differ significantly by sex.\n                  <\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    <jats:bold>Conclusions:<\/jats:bold>\n                    These findings indicate that unsupervised clustering can reveal distinct motor performance phenotypes in school-age children and highlight the value of balance-related tasks for differentiating coordination and motor control profiles during childhood.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/00315125261486691","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]],"date-time":"2026-09-09T06:20:21Z","timestamp":1788934821000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Motor Performance Phenotypes and Balance\u2013Coordination Characteristics Identified by Unsupervised Clustering in Nigerian School-Age Children"],"prefix":"10.1177","author":[{"given":"Obaje Godwin","family":"Sunday","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anatomy, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu Alike"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Uche Judith","family":"Ibe","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Anatomy, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu Alike"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0006-7676-1297","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Thi Xuyen","family":"Vu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Mathematics and Computer Science, Hanoi National University of Education"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1392-8081","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Thi Hong Hanh","family":"Nguyen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Biology, Hanoi National University of Education, Hanoi, Vietnam"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_9_2_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s40279-016-0495-z"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_3_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s40279-021-01516-8"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_4_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/dmcn.14132"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_5_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/02640414.2020.1841405"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_6_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s40279-019-01150-5"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_7_1","volume-title":"Bruininks-Oseretsky test of motor proficiency: Examiner's manual","author":"Bruininks R. H.","year":"1978","unstructured":"Bruininks R. H. (1978). Bruininks-Oseretsky test of motor proficiency: Examiner's manual. American Guidance Service."},{"key":"e_1_3_9_8_1","volume-title":"Bruininks-Oseretsky test of motor proficiency","author":"Bruininks R. H.","year":"2005","unstructured":"Bruininks R. H., Bruininks B. D. (2005). Bruininks-Oseretsky test of motor proficiency (2nd ed.). AGS Publishing.","edition":"2"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_9_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jsams.2014.12.004"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_10_1","first-page":"163","volume-title":"Motor development: Research and reviews","author":"Clark J. E.","year":"2002","unstructured":"Clark J. E., Metcalfe J. S. (2002). The mountain of motor development: A metaphor. In Clark J. E., Humphrey J. H. (Eds.), Motor development: Research and reviews (2, pp. 163\u2013190). National Association for Sport and Physical Education."},{"key":"e_1_3_9_11_1","volume-title":"Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences","author":"Cohen J.","year":"1988","unstructured":"Cohen J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.","edition":"2"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_12_1","volume-title":"Eurofit: Handbook for the eurofit tests of physical fitness","author":"Council of Europe","year":"1988","unstructured":"Council of Europe. (1988). Eurofit: Handbook for the eurofit tests of physical fitness. Council of Europe. Committee for the Development of Sport."},{"key":"e_1_3_9_13_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"De Meester A. Stodden D. Brian A. True L. Cardon G. Tallir I. Haerens L. (2016). Associations among elementary school children's actual motor competence perceived motor competence physical activity and BMI: A cross-sectional study. PLoS One 11(10) Article e0164600. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0164600","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0164600"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_14_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/cch.13084"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_15_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2522\/ptj.20090308"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_16_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/16549716.2017.1340396"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_17_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1002\/9780470977811"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_18_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1249\/MSS.0b013e318295a9fc"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_19_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-0-387-84858-7"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_20_1","volume-title":"Movement assessment battery for Children-2","author":"Henderson S. E.","year":"2007","unstructured":"Henderson S. E., Sugden D. A., Barnett A. L. (2007). Movement assessment battery for Children-2 (2nd ed.). The Psychological Corporation.","edition":"2"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_21_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.psychsport.2014.03.005"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_22_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ijporl.2009.01.016"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_23_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s40279-018-0892-6"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_24_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-4614-7138-7"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_25_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1542\/peds.2008-1770"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_26_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/1612197X.2016.1226923"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_27_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2165\/11536850-000000000-00000"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_28_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/sj.ejcn.1602153"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_29_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1542\/peds.2013-1167"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_30_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.neulet.2004.11.042"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_31_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s40279-015-0351-6"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_32_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/00336297.2008.10483582"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_33_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1136\/bjsports-2017-097982"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_34_1","volume-title":"Test of gross motor development","author":"Ulrich D. A.","year":"2019","unstructured":"Ulrich D. A. (2019). Test of gross motor development (3rd ed.). Western Psychological Services.","edition":"3"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_35_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/00315125211025246"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_36_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-94-009-4460-2"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_37_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/01621459.1963.10500845"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_38_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1123\/jmld.2016-0003"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_39_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s40279-017-0723-1"},{"key":"e_1_3_9_40_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ejpn.2012.05.005"}],"container-title":["Perceptual and Motor Skills"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/00315125261486691","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/full-xml\/10.1177\/00315125261486691","content-type":"application\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/00315125261486691","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,12]],"date-time":"2026-09-12T07:19:07Z","timestamp":1789197547000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1177\/00315125261486691"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,8]]},"references-count":39,"alternative-id":["10.1177\/00315125261486691"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/00315125261486691","relation":{},"ISSN":["0031-5125","1558-688X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0031-5125","type":"print"},{"value":"1558-688X","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,8]]},"article-number":"00315125261486691"}}