Everyday walking: A multi-method approach to measuring the development of infant walking skill at home

• In Event: Effects of movement, tool use, and object exploration on children's perception of space

Abstract

Infants learn to walk at home. However, most of what is known about the development of walking skill is drawn from descriptions of how much and how well infants walk in a laboratory playroom. Prior work generally relied on two methods: a straight-path task that captures walking proficiency (e.g., gait analysis) and observations of infants’ everyday walking during play (e.g., how often babies walk). Moreover, researchers often approximate infants’ experience with walking by calculating their walking age (the number of days elapsed since walk onset). Walking age is highly correlated with walking proficiency; that is, infants with more days of walking are also better at walking (e.g., they take longer, narrower steps). However, measures of spontaneous walking and measures of proficiency capture different features of the development of walking—time vs. skill. Do walking age and walking proficiency differentially predict how much infants walk during everyday activities at home?

To examine relations among walking age, walking proficiency, and everyday walking, we observed 19 infants longitudinally after they began walking (five continuous steps without stopping or falling). Families were visited monthly at home and each infant contributed three observations spanning their first 100 days as walkers. At each visit, infants were encouraged to walk over a 10-foot pressure-sensitive walkway as quickly as possible (i.e., the straight-path task). They were also videorecorded during daily activities for 30 minutes (i.e., everyday walking). Gait data were processed using field-standard methods to calculate average step length (front-to-back distance between steps) and step width (side-to-side distance between steps). From each video of everyday activity, coders identified the onsets and offsets of each walking bout and counted the number of steps per bout. Coded data were used to calculate the proportion of time spent walking, number of bouts, and accumulated number of steps.

Our home data replicated reported relations between walking age and walking proficiency in laboratory studies: as infants accumulated days of walking, they became better walkers (i.e., step lengths increased and step widths decreased, ps < .001). Walking age was a stronger predictor of observational measures of everyday walking at home (ps < .001; Figures 1A-C). And although step length and step width (Figures 1B-C) also predicted these behaviors, regression analyses revealed that walking age accounted for an additional 7-15% of the variance in the time infants spent walking, number of bouts they initiated, and number of steps they took, above and beyond walking skill (all ps < .05).

Taken together, this multi-method home study of infant walking demonstrates both the feasibility of collecting gait in the home and the unique roles that walking age and walking experience play in how much infants walk. In ongoing analyses, we are examining how infants use walking to explore their everyday surrounds by identifying the objects and people they encounter during their travels.

Authors

• Joshua L Schneider, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Samantha Plate, University of Pittsburgh

• Emily Roemer Britsch, University of Pittsburgh

• Jenna M Trout

• Kaitlyn B Cortez, University of Pittsburgh

• Madyson R Diehl, University of Pittsburgh

• Whitney G Cole, New York University

• Justine Hoch, New York University

• Christina Hospodar, New York University

• Karen E Adolph, New York University

• Jana M Iverson, Boston University