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Movement patterns of limb coordination in infant rolling

December 2016
Experimental Brain Research 234(12)

Authors:

Infants must perform dynamic whole-body movements to initiate rolling, a key motor skill. However, little is known regarding limb coordination and postural control in infant rolling. To address this lack of knowledge, we examined movement patterns and limb coordination during rolling in younger infants (aged 5–7 months) that had just begun to roll and in older infants (aged 8–10 months) with greater rolling experience. Due to anticipated difficulty in obtaining measurements over the second half of the rolling sequence, we limited our analysis to the first half. Ipsilateral and contralateral limbs were identified on the basis of rolling direction and were classified as either a stationary limb used for postural stability or a moving limb used for controlled movement. We classified the observed movement patterns by identifying the number of stationary limbs and the serial order of combinational limb movement patterns. Notably, older infants performed more movement patterns that involved a lower number of stationary limbs than younger infants. Despite the wide range of possible movement patterns, a small group of basic patterns dominated in both age groups. Our results suggest that the fundamental structure of limb coordination during rolling in the early acquisition stages remains unchanged until at least 8–10 months of age. However, compared to younger infants, older infants exhibited a greater ability to select an effective rotational movement by positioning themselves with fewer stationary limbs and performing faster limb movements.

Position of attachment markers. Black and white points indicate primary and secondary markers, respectively. Eight spherical reflective markers were attached; four were attached to the trunk, one on each wrist and one on each ankle

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Flow chart of the analysis procedure

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Data analysis procedure. a Marker displacement for the trunk (TR) and four limbs, ipsilateral arm (IA), ipsilateral leg (IL), contralateral arm (CA), and contralateral leg (CL) along the x-axis. b Determination of the time of maximum trunk rotation velocity. c Identification of the stationary limbs, which are indicated by asterisks. d Determination of the time of maximum velocity for each moving limb. e Determination of the timing of motion of each moving limb

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Distribution of the laterality index of direction in younger and older infants. Positive values represent rolling more frequently to the right than the left. Values of 1 and −1 occur where the participant rolled right and left, respectively, in every trial for that participant

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Pie charts of the percentage of the number of observed trials with respect to category of stationary limbs and direction of ipsilateral moving limbs for younger and older infants. “Two stationary limbs” represents the movement patterns involving stationary limbs of IA and IL. “One stationary limb (IA)” shows that IA is a stationary limb and IL moves forward in the rolling direction. “One stationary limb (IA)—IL moving backward” shows that IA is a stationary limb and IL moves backward. “One stationary limb (IL)” shows that IL is a stationary limb and IA moves forward. “No stationary limbs” shows that all the limbs move forward. Percentage values indicate % of trials

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Exp Brain Res (2016) 234:3433–3445

DOI 10.1007/s00221-016-4741-2

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Movement patterns of limb coordination in infant rolling

Yoshio Kobayashi1 · Hama Watanabe1 · Gentaro Taga1

Received: 30 September 2015 / Accepted: 20 July 2016 / Published online: 27 July 2016

with fewer stationary limbs and performing faster limb

movements.

Keywords Infant · Rolling · Limb coordination ·

Movement patterns

Introduction

Rolling is a goal-directed, whole-body movement that takes

the individual from a supine to prone position and is a fun-

damental movement necessary in daily life. This ability is a

highly important milestone for infants, enabling movement

within their external environment. Pioneering studies have

described the developmental milestone of rolling and docu-

mented the timing of its appearance during motor develop-

ment (Bayley 1993; Gesell and Thompson 1934; McGraw

1941; Shirley 1931). More recent studies demonstrate that

more than 50 % of infants between the ages of 5–6 months

and 90 % of infants at 9 months of age acquire the ability to

roll over (Kimura-Ohba 2011; Nelson et al. 2004; Piper and

Darrah 1994). Notably, rolling movements require an initial

disruption of stability in the supine position, together with

a signiﬁcant number of segmental body movements. There-

fore, rolling is a complex goal-directed movement that uti-

lizes several body segments.

Previous studies have described the complexities of the

rolling process in adults and children. One study exam-

ined whether the movement patterns of each body region

varied between adults by using videotape analyses to

describe sequences of movement for the upper extrem-

ity, head/trunk, and lower extremity (Richter et al. 1989).

The authors demonstrated that multiple distinct move-

ment sequences could be observed in each body region and

that particular movements were favored. For example, the

Abstract Infants must perform dynamic whole-body

movements to initiate rolling, a key motor skill. However,

little is known regarding limb coordination and postural

control in infant rolling. To address this lack of knowl-

edge, we examined movement patterns and limb coordina-

tion during rolling in younger infants (aged 5–7 months)

that had just begun to roll and in older infants (aged

8–10 months) with greater rolling experience. Due to antic-

ipated difﬁculty in obtaining measurements over the second

half of the rolling sequence, we limited our analysis to the

ﬁrst half. Ipsilateral and contralateral limbs were identi-

ﬁed on the basis of rolling direction and were classiﬁed as

either a stationary limb used for postural stability or a mov-

ing limb used for controlled movement. We classiﬁed the

observed movement patterns by identifying the number of

stationary limbs and the serial order of combinational limb

movement patterns. Notably, older infants performed more

movement patterns that involved a lower number of station-

ary limbs than younger infants. Despite the wide range of

possible movement patterns, a small group of basic patterns

dominated in both age groups. Our results suggest that the

fundamental structure of limb coordination during rolling

in the early acquisition stages remains unchanged until at

least 8–10 months of age. However, compared to younger

infants, older infants exhibited a greater ability to select an

effective rotational movement by positioning themselves

* Yoshio Kobayashi

ykoba@p.u-tokyo.ac.jp

* Gentaro Taga

taga@p.u-tokyo.ac.jp

1 Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo,

7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

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