Stimulating the Motor Development of Very Premature Infants: Effects of Early Crawling Training on a Mini-Skateboard

Dumuids-Vernet, Marie-Victorine; Forma, Vincent; Provasi, Joëlle; Anderson, David I.; Hinnekens, Elodie; Soyez, Evelyne; Strassel, Mathilde; Guéret, Léa; Hym, Charlotte; Huet, Viviane; Granjon, Lionel; Calamy, Lucie; Dassieu, Gilles; Boujenah, Laurence; Dollat, Camille; Biran, Valérie; Barbu-Roth, Marianne

doi:10.1101/2023.03.24.23287528

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Permitting coordination between all four limbs during infant locomotor training might yield faster and greater benefits. Barbu-Roth and colleagues have argued that training crawling from a very early age represents one of the most effective ways to engage the quadrupedal circuitry to stimulate the motor and locomotor development of infants at risk for delay or disability (Dumuids-Vernet et al, 2023). Moreover, clinicians can potentially make locomotor interventions even more effective by exploiting the higher order perceptual variables (optic flow, mother's voice, odor of mother's breast) known to enhance newborn crawling (e.g., Forma et al, 2018;Hym et al, 2020Hym et al, , 2022.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence of tactile arm stepping in newborns and its responsiveness to optic flows specifying self‐translation

Barbu‐Roth,

Anderson

2023

Infancy

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Although the arms participate in many forms of human locomotion, we know very little about when arm movements emerge during locomotor development. Here we investigated whether newborns would make tactile arm stepping movements when we supported them almost horizontally so their hands touched a surface and blocked their leg movements. Building off prior work showing that newborns make more crawling and air stepping leg movements when exposed to optic flows specifying forward and backward self‐translation, we also examined whether newborns would make more tactile arm steps when exposed to forward and backward optic flows compared to a random optic flow that did not specify translation. We found that newborns can perform arm stepping and produce a significantly higher number of tactile arm steps in the optic flow condition specifying backward translation than in the random optic flow condition. Both translating optic flow conditions had significantly higher numbers of alternating arm steps than the random optic flow condition. These findings show that tactile arm stepping exists at birth and that optic flows can facilitate their production, similar to leg stepping. We argue that these results further support the idea that a quadrupedal organization underlies early upright stepping.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence of tactile arm stepping in newborns and its responsiveness to optic flows specifying self‐translation

Barbu‐Roth,

Anderson

2023

Infancy

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“…A preprint of this paper is available on medRxiv ( 85 ). We would like to thank all the infants and parents who participated in this study and all the osteopaths who performed the 1,600 total home visits for their enthusiastic support during this study.…”

Section: Acknowledgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stimulating the motor development of very premature infants: effects of early crawling training on a mini-skateboard

et al. 2023

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AimTo examine the effects of an early home-based 8-week crawling intervention performed by trained therapists on the motor and general development of very premature infants during the first year of life.MethodsAt term-equivalent age, immediately following discharge from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), we randomly allocated 44 premature infants born before 32 weeks' gestation without major brain damage to one of three conditions in our intervention study: crawling on a mini-skateboard, the Crawliskate (Crawli), prone positioning control (Mattress), or standard care (Control). The Crawli and Mattress groups received 5 min daily at-home training administered by trained therapists for 8 consecutive weeks upon discharge from the NICU. The outcomes of greatest interest included gross motor development (Bayley-III) at 2, 6, 9, and 12 months (primary outcome) corrected age (CA), mature crawling at 9 months CA and general development at 9 and 12 months CA [Ages and Stages Questionnaires-3 (ASQ-3)]. The study was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov; registration number: NCT05278286.ResultsA 3 (Condition) × 4 (Age) repeated measures ANOVA revealed that Crawli group infants had significantly higher Bayley-III gross motor development scores than Mattress and Control group infants. Crawli group infants also scored significantly higher on groups of Bayley-III items related to specific motor skills than infants in the other groups, including crawling at 9 months CA. We found significant differences in favor of the Crawli group in separate one-way ANOVAs at each of the ages we examined. A 3 (Condition) × 2 (Age) repeated measures ANOVA revealed that the Crawli group scored significantly higher than the Control group for the ASQ-3 total score and communication score and significantly higher for the fine motor score than the Control and Mattress groups. We found additional significant differences in favor of the Crawli group for other dimensions of the ASQ-3 in separate one-way ANOVAs at 9 and 12 months CA.InterpretationEarly crawling training on a Crawliskate provides an effective way to promote motor and general development in very premature infants. The findings also provide clear evidence for a link between newborn crawling and more mature crawling later in development.

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Une intervention précoce Premalocom 2 avec les parents pour stimuler la marche quadrupède de leurs grands prématurés

Guéret,

Hinnekens,

Barbu-Roth

2023

Enfance

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La présente étude a pour but d’évaluer la faisabilité, par les parents, d’une intervention stimulant la mobilité quadrupède de leurs enfants grands prématurés à haut risque de trouble du neuro développement. Méthodologie : dix-sept enfants nés grands prématurés entre 24 et 32 semaines d’aménorrhée ont été recrutés pour être entraînés à domicile par leurs parents avec l’aide d’intervenants afin de stimuler leur marche quadrupède sur un mini-skateboard 10 minutes par jour pendant 8 semaines consécutives, dès leur sortie de néonatologie. La faisabilité du protocole a été évaluée sur le nombre d’abandons éventuels de l’étude, la compliance des parents à réaliser les séances d’entraînement et la capacité des enfants à effectuer une propulsion active lors de ces séances. Différents facteurs pouvant jouer un rôle sur la faisabilité ont été également évalués comme le niveau socio-économique des parents, leur niveau de stress et le niveau d’excitabilité de leurs enfants lors des séances. Résultats/Discussion : malgré 5 enfants ayant arrêté le protocole pour des raisons de santé ou des problèmes parentaux, les résultats obtenus sur 12 enfants montrent une relativement bonne observance avec un taux moyen de 65 % des séances effectuées (dont 37 % par les parents et 28 % par les intervenants) ce chiffre étant d’autant moins élevé que le niveau socio-économique des parents était bas (r = 0,75, p < 0,01). Dans l’ensemble, les parents ont bien respecté la durée de 10 minutes par jour des séances (moyenne de 8,8 min) et malgré leur fragilité, les enfants ont été capables de se déplacer sur de grandes distances sur le mini skate lors des séances (moyenne de 7 mètres/ séance) que celles-ci soient menées par les parents ou les intervenants. Ces distances étaient cependant très fortement variables selon les individus et selon la séance et augmentaient avec le niveau d’excitabilité des enfants (r = 0,75, p<0,01) et le niveau de stress des parents (r = 0,67, p<0,02). Conclusion : cette étude permet de dégager plusieurs facteurs importants pour l’inclusion future d’autres sujets, à savoir : 1) reculer éventuellement le début de l’intervention jusqu’à 2 à 3 semaines après la sortie de néonatologie pour les cas cliniques et familiaux difficiles 2) rallonger la durée de l’intervention à 12-14 semaines afin d’augmenter le nombre de séances 3) augmenter l’aide des intervenants pour les parents en difficulté.

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Stimulating the Motor Development of Very Premature Infants: Effects of Early Crawling Training on a Mini-Skateboard

Cited by 3 publications

References 78 publications

Evidence of tactile arm stepping in newborns and its responsiveness to optic flows specifying self‐translation

Evidence of tactile arm stepping in newborns and its responsiveness to optic flows specifying self‐translation

Stimulating the motor development of very premature infants: effects of early crawling training on a mini-skateboard

Une intervention précoce Premalocom 2 avec les parents pour stimuler la marche quadrupède de leurs grands prématurés

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