Learning to reach with “sticky” or “non-sticky” mittens: A tale of developmental trajectories

Williams, Joshua L.; Corbetta, Daniela; Guan, Yu

doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2015.01.001

Cited by 37 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Infants in the first months of life use early finger and hand movements to explore novel sensory stimuli that are placed in their hand demonstrating early use of somatosensory input to modify motor behaviors . The active exploration of objects not only advances the onset of reaching but increases visual attention to the object and the examiner's face demonstrating the coupling between developing sensory and motor systems . These examples of the influence of the sensory system on development provide a glimpse into the important role sensory information has in all areas of development throughout the first year of life.…”

Section: Sensory Informationmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Infants reduce the magnitude of center of pressure displacement while visualizing a toy, yet retain an optimal level of postural complexity without using repetitive movements of the center of pressure to accomplish their goal. Visual attention combined with active experiences contacting the object advances the development of reaching more than passive interactions or only visualizing the object . Taken together these examples suggest that those infants who have had active movement experiences have the ability to perceive visual and tactile stimuli, and modify postural control and reaching strategies in response to the task demands during the first months of life.…”

Section: Interaction Of the Sensory Motor And Postural Control Systemsmentioning

confidence: 94%

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Postural variability and sensorimotor development in infancy

Dusing

2016

Develop Med Child Neuro

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Infants develop skills through a coupling between their sensory and motor systems. Newborn infants must interpret sensory information and use it to modify movements and organize the postural control system based on the task demands. This paper starts with a brief review of evidence on the use of sensory information in the first months of life, and describes the importance of movement variability and postural control in infancy. This introduction is followed by a review of the evidence for the interactions between the sensory, motor, and postural control systems in typically development infants. The paper highlights the ability of young infants to use sensory information to modify motor behaviors and learn from their experiences. Last, the paper highlights evidence of atypical use of sensory, motor, and postural control in the first months of life in infants who were born preterm, with neonatal brain injury or later diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP).Infants begin to move and interact with their environment prior to birth, setting the stage for a lifetime of interaction between the sensory and motor systems. While early fetal movement appears to be spontaneously generated, both rat and human research suggests that movement in the prenatal period can be modified using sensory input.

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Section: Sensory Informationmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Interaction Of the Sensory Motor And Postural Control Systemsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Postural variability and sensorimotor development in infancy

Dusing

2016

Develop Med Child Neuro

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Overall, the findings from the ITT analysis confirm our main findings with two exceptions: Levels of distraction did not differ between AT and UC groups and more criticallygrasping activity did not differ between AT and PT groups. This discrepancy may be due to the PT group also increasing their grasping somewhat in response to the training experience (Williams, Corbetta & Guan, 2015). In fact, mere participation in any type of motor training regimen has the potential to alter parents' subsequent engagement with their children.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motor training at 3 months affects object exploration 12 months later

Libertus

Joh

Needham

2015

Developmental Science

104

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The development of new motor skills alters how infants interact with objects and people. Consequently, it has been suggested that motor skills may initiate a cascade of events influencing subsequent development. However, only correlational evidence for this assumption has been obtained thus far. The current study addressed this question experimentally by systematically varying reaching experiences in 40 three-month-old infants who were not reaching on their own yet and examining their object engagement in a longitudinal follow-up assessment 12 months later. Results revealed increased object exploration and attention focusing skills in 15-month-old infants who experienced active reaching at three months of age compared to untrained infants or infants who only passively experienced reaching. Further, grasping activity after – but not before – reaching training predicted infants’ object exploration 12 months later. These findings provide evidence for the long-term effects of reaching experiences and illustrate the cascading effects initiated by early motor skills.

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“…However, the block playing may have encouraged caregivers to participate in even more active interactions with their infant in a range of settings. In fact, a previous study suggests that sticky mittens training administered by an experimenter rather than a caregiver is not effective (Williams et al, ). It would be an interesting venue for future studies to investigate if stronger effects of the training can be found also in our paradigm if caregivers are allowed to use the study materials outside of the training sessions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…In these interventions, 3 to 4‐month‐old infants, who do not yet have the ability to successfully reach for and grasp objects, are given mittens that allow them to pick up velcro‐covered objects (Needham, Barrett, & Peterman, ). Positive effects of sticky mittens training have been found on: grasping (Libertus & Landa, ), object processing and exploration (Libertus et al, ; Needham et al, ; Wiesen, Watkins, & Needham, ; Williams, Corbetta, & Guan, ), causality perception (Rakison & Krogh, ), teleological processes (Skerry, Carey, & Spelke, ) and sensitivity to goal‐directed actions (Bakker, Sommerville, & Gredebäck, ; Gerson & Woodward, ). Together these findings demonstrate that individual differences in a wide range of perceptual and cognitive abilities can be affected by motor experiences and active exploration during early childhood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Play enhances visual form perception in infancy–an active training study

Schröder

Gredebäck

Gunnarsson

et al. 2019

Developmental Science

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Motor experiences and active exploration during early childhood may affect individual differences in a wide range of perceptual and cognitive abilities. In the current study, we suggest that active exploration of objects facilitates the ability to process object forms and magnitudes, which in turn impacts the development of numerosity perception. We tested our hypothesis by conducting a preregistered active exploration intervention with 59 8‐month‐old infants. The minimal intervention consisted of actively playing with and exploring blocks once a day for 8 weeks. In order to control for possible training effects on attention, we used book reading as a control condition. Pre‐ and post‐test assessments using eye‐tracking showed that block play improved visual form perception, where infants became better at detecting a deviant shape. Furthermore, using three control tasks, we showed that the intervention specifically improved infants' ability to process visual forms and the effect could not be explained by a domain general improvement in attention or visual perception. We found that the intervention did not improve numerosity perception and suggest that because of the sequential nature of our hypothesis, a longer time frame might be needed to see improvements in this ability. Our findings indicate that if infants are given more opportunities for play and exploration, it will have positive effects on their visual form perception, which in turn could help their understanding of geometrical concepts.

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Learning to reach with “sticky” or “non-sticky” mittens: A tale of developmental trajectories

Cited by 37 publications

References 60 publications

Postural variability and sensorimotor development in infancy

Postural variability and sensorimotor development in infancy

Motor training at 3 months affects object exploration 12 months later

Play enhances visual form perception in infancy–an active training study

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