Diversity and regularity in infant crawling with typical development.
Shimpei Yamamoto, Lee Yonghi, Umi Matsumura and 1 others
PMID 32884166WHAT IT FOUND
Nineteen typically developing infants showed wide differences in crawling movement patterns before walking, from 23 to 65 types.
Infants who began crawling earlier tended to show more patterns, so no single count was consistent.
Key findings
01The cumulative number of crawling movement patterns at independent walking varied widely among the 19 infants analyzed, from 23 to 65 types.
02Infants who started crawling earlier tended to have more cumulative crawling variations, and this relationship was statistically significant.
03No significant differences were found between male and female infants in crawling start age, crawling duration, age at independent walking, or cumulative variations.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Only 19 infants were analyzed after 21 of 40 were excluded, so the group may not represent all infants. Filming could not start exactly at the first crawling day for every infant, so early variations may have been missed. The study counted types of movement patterns but did not analyze which specific patterns were common or necessary for walking. This was an observational study, not a treatment trial, so it cannot show that increasing crawling variations improves walking.
Declared interests
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP18K02444. The authors declared no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that infants need a certain number of crawling variations to walk. The study observed 19 typical infants and found no consistent required count, and it did not test whether increasing variations improves walking.