Relationship between visual function and motor skills: validation through a vision training system and physical fitness test.
Daisuke Toyoda, Daisuke Sudo, Takayoshi Saito
PMID 41036526WHAT IT FOUND
In healthy adults, better spatial awareness on a vision test correlated with higher overall fitness scores and specifically with better repeated horizontal jump performance.
Other visual skills, like eye-hand coordination or peripheral perception, showed no significant link to physical fitness.
Key findings
01Spatial awareness scores showed a significant positive correlation with the total physical fitness test score.
02Spatial awareness scores showed a significant positive correlation with performance on the repeated horizontal jump test.
03Visual functions other than spatial awareness, including eye-hand coordination and instantaneous visual memory, did not show significant correlations with total physical fitness scores.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study included only 30 healthy young adults, so the findings do not apply to children, the elderly, or people with disabilities. The design is cross-sectional and correlational, meaning it cannot determine if visual skills cause better motor skills or if they are linked by a third factor. Eye movements and brain activity were not measured during the visual tasks, so the underlying mechanisms are unknown. The sample size is small, which limits the generalizability of the results.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that training spatial awareness will improve physical fitness or motor skills. This study only shows a link between the two in healthy young adults; it did not test an intervention or prove causation.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →