**1. Introduction**

Fundamental movement skills (FMS) are common motor activities with a general goal [1], which involve the use of large muscle groups within the body [2,3]. In terms of their categorical distinction, FMS are often differentiated into three subsets: (1) locomotor skills (e.g., running and skipping); object-control/ball skills (e.g., throwing and catching); and (3) stability skills (e.g., balancing and twisting) [2]. As an important component of the motor-development domain, FMS facilitate participation in physical activity and contribute to the holistic development of children and adolescents [1–3]. Previous evidence suggests that the development of FMS proficiency in children and adolescents can serve as the foundational building blocks for future lifelong daily activities [4]. FMS proficiency increases the likelihood of children and adolescents developing specialized movement sequences for participating effectively across a variety of organized and unorganized physical activities [2].

FMS are commonly viewed as a central tenet and developmental stage within the motor-skills domain [2,5]. In terms of Physical Education (PE), physical activity (PA), and sport settings, FMS have a critical role in both promoting and maintaining healthy developmental trajectories in children and adolescents [6]. In terms of empirical healthrelated research associations, positive relationships have been consistently found between FMS and PA, physical fitness, body composition, self-belief, and executive functioning [7,8].

**Citation:** O'Brien, W.; Khodaverdi, Z.; Bolger, L.; Murphy, O.; Philpott, C.; Kearney, P.E. Exploring Recommendations for Child and Adolescent Fundamental Movement Skills Development: A Narrative Review. *Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health* **2023**, *20*, 3278. https:// doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20043278

Academic Editors: Clemens Drenowatz and Klaus Greier

Received: 20 December 2022 Revised: 29 January 2023 Accepted: 1 February 2023 Published: 13 February 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

While these positive associations between FMS and health have been observed quite frequently within the literature, children and adolescents do not solely acquire these motor skills as a result of the maturation process [9,10]. The development of FMS proficiency in children and adolescents is often dependent on the quality of the instructional environment and the provision of practice-based opportunities [2,11], augmenting the importance of key stakeholders, such as PE teachers, sport pedagogues, coaches, and researchers, within this process.

Research and practice have consistently highlighted how FMS interventions are successful in promoting skills and physical health [12–14]; however, the specific parameters for FMS-related recommendations have not been systematically investigated in PE, PA, and sport settings. The evidence to date has identified various strategies for measuring FMS-training exposure (e.g., types of FMS interventions) in children and adolescents; however, the general concepts for quantifying the frequency, duration (time), and intensity of FMS-related training [15] is less known among PE teachers, coaches, and sport practitioners. Together, the combined frequency, intensity, time, and type (FITT) product [16] has the potential to yield an evidence-informed FMS-related training dose for children and adolescents. The well-established FITT principle has been traditionally used to characterise recommended guidelines for PA and exercise [17].

Despite the growing number of FMS-related interventions in PE, PA, and sport settings, there appears to be an inconsistency as to *"what works"* in terms of an appropriate FMS-related training dosage [13]. The development of FMS in children and adolescents was empirically and correctly established as *"an important focus"* in 2016 [11]. Now, what remains for PE teachers, coaches, sport pedagogues, and researchers is the implementation of evidence-informed FMS-related recommendations. The FITT training principle may be one such way of providing this implementation guidance for practitioners, particularly once sufficient evidence is identified across studies to develop appropriate recommendations. Indeed, other health-and-exercise-related fields have previously used the FITT principle to categorise successful intervention features and provide subsequent recommendations for practitioners [18,19]. This paper, therefore, seeks to examine whether FMS interventions present sufficient consistency to be summarised and modified using the FITT principle, with the overall aim of providing evidence-informed and practical FMS-related recommendations for practitioners.
