This original research by a team of psychologists from the University of California – Riverside provides for the first time solid evidence on the significant impact of children's motor skills on their daily experiences and therefore their learning. Beyond that, this work, presented in the journal Infancy, emphasizes the role of caregivers and parents in supporting infants as they attempt to alter their body position.
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Lead author John Franchak, a psychologist from the University of California measured how often babies spend time in different body positions during their first year of life. Its objective is to better understand how the physical context of infants' daily experiences and in particular the time spent in different positions is associated with infants' motor skills.
Behavioral monitoring by Momentary Ecological Assessment (EMA) : the research is conducted with separate groups of 95 children aged 3 months, 6 months, 9 months and 1 year. The study uses an innovative approach to acquire this data: caregivers or parents of infants receive text messages 5 times a day, for a week, to report the baby's position, its precise location. The study is the first to use this method, called Momentary Ecological Assessment (EMA), to measure infant behaviors. This method brings a better idea of the real life of infants -compared to a laboratory study- and gives a more realistic breakdown of their different body positions and experiences over the course of a day. These data provide a better understanding of how infants develop and learn about the world. In fact,
Data analysis shows that:
- 3-month-old infants are held for almost half of their waking time,
- 1-year-olds are less often restrained and spend most of their time on the floor;
- the frequency with which babies play, crawl or sit changes the way they interact with objects, the outside world and other humans.
Specifically, the study finds that
- the infant aged 3 months sits, stands or lies down less than 7% of his day;
- at 12 months, these positions represent 62% of the infant's day.
Typically , babies start
- to sit up around the age of 6 months,
- to crawl around the age of 8 months,
- to stand up around 11 months,
- and walk at the age of one year.
Motricity and learning: the position of the infant's body determines the way in which he interacts with the world, which conditions his chances of learning. Learning to sit is linked to a better perception of the object. Learning to walk is linked to improved language proficiency. Thus, underlines the author, “the time that babies spend in different positions shapes their visual and manual activity and has an impact on their perceptual, cognitive and social development”.
The bottom line for parents, carers and carers is to do their best to help the child practice and develop motor skills. In particular, promote the autonomous sitting position at height: “ For example, babies rarely see faces when playing on the floor in sitting, standing, and lying positions, but see them more often when sitting (and being held) in a high chair. Babies who can sit independently at 6 months of age spend more time immersed in daily family life. This allows them to manipulate objects more frequently and have almost twice as many opportunities to experience visual and manual exploration. Finally, learning to walk alters social interactions and predicts improved spatial cognition .