Association Between Visual Search Performance and Eye–Hand Coordination in School-Aged Children

Abstract

Eye–hand coordination (EHC), a fundamental component of visuomotor development in children, plays an important role in motor control, learning, and injury prevention. This study aimed to examine the association between trail making test part A (TMT-A) performance and EHC in school-aged children. Twenty-seven children aged 9–14 years participated in this cross-sectional study. EHC was assessed using a touchscreen-based visuomotor task, whereas visual search and reaction speed were evaluated using the TMT-A and ruler drop test (RDT), respectively. Spearman’s correlation and multiple linear regression analyses were performed with adjustment for age and sex. Bias-corrected and accelerated (BCa) bootstrap confidence intervals (2000 resamples) were calculated. Both TMT-A and RDT were significantly correlated with EHC performance. In the full sample, TMT-A remained significantly associated with EHC performance after adjustment for age and sex; however, this association was not robust in a sensitivity analysis excluding a high-leverage observation. Thus, the adjusted association should be considered exploratory and requires confirmation in larger independent samples.