<p>Relationships
between motor development and language abilities have been consistently
reported in previous literature. One of the relationships that has becoming
increasing popular is the link between walking and language. Whereas research
has demonstrated that onset of walking is related to communicative skills and
vocabulary abilities (e.g., Clearfield, 2011; Walle & Campos, 2014), the
mechanism underlying this relationship remains unclear. One potential
explanation is that walking increases young children’s opportunities to
interact with objects and explore the environment. Young children’s ability to
adapt gait while playing is necessary for successful navigation of their
environment and may be one factor underlying the walking-language relationship.
However, little research has examined how young children adapt gait when
interacting with objects in their environment when they are free to walk in a
naturalistic manner. Additionally, how young children’s gait control and
behavior during free-play is related to word learning has also been
understudied. The purpose of this dissertation was to quantify how new and
experienced walkers adapt gait behavior based on task (carrying objects
compared to not carrying objects) and environmental constraints (free-play versus
straight-path) and assess how these behaviors may be related to language
abilities early in development. </p>
<p><br></p><p>Chapter
3 examined how object carriage impacts gait characteristics and behavioral
measures of stability during free-play and a straight-path task. New
(13-month-olds) and experienced (24-month-olds) walkers engaged in a 20-minute
free-play session with their parents. Eighteen toys that varied in size and
weight were provided. Following the free-play session, new and experienced
walkers engaged in a straight-path task where they were encouraged to walk from
their parents to the experimenter, take a toy, and carry the toy back to their
parent. Overall, size and weight did not appear to impact lower-body gait
characteristics. Although there were no differences in lower-body gait control
when carrying a toy compared to not carrying a toy, there were individual
differences in how young children adapted their step length, step width, and
stride speed with some children adopting more mature gait characteristics and
others adopting less mature gait patterns. Young children’s lower-body gait
also differed based on environmental constraints (free-play versus
straight-path task). In addition to these lower-body findings, new and
experienced walkers also adapted their upper-body control when carrying toys in
both free-play and the straight-path task. New walkers also appear to focus on
weight of the toy when selecting toys to carry whereas experienced walkers did
not demonstrate preference for specific toy characteristics. </p>
<p><br></p><p>Chapter
4 assessed the relationship between gait characteristics and functional
behavior during free-play and communicative/vocabulary abilities in new and
experienced walkers. Thirty-eight new walkers and thirty-eight experienced
walkers from Chapter 3 were included in the analyses. Additionally, thirteen
new walkers also returned at 24-months and repeated the data collection
procedure for a longitudinal analysis of these relationships. The protocol for
Chapter 3 was the same as Chapter 4; however, only free-play measures were
included in the analyses. Parents also filled out the age-appropriate version
of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory as a measure of
communicative/vocabulary abilities. Overall, the results of Chapter 4
demonstrated that quality of upper-body gait control and time spent in motion
were significant predictors of new walkers’ communicative skills and vocabulary
abilities. Whereas these relationships were not apparent in the experienced
walking group, quality of gait at 13-months was predictive of productive
vocabulary scores at 24-months of age. </p>
<p><br></p><p>Taken
together, the results from these studies suggest that examining gait behavior
during free-play reveals how complex young children’s navigation of their environment
is. Furthermore, these early movements and functional behavior during free-play
may be important predictors underlying the relationship between onset of
walking and language development.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/8174984 |
| Date | 12 August 2019 |
| Creators | Amanda J Arnold (6728435) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/The_Impact_of_Object_Carriage_on_Walking_Abilities_and_Language_Development_in_Infancy/8174984 |
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