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Exploring objects with feet advances movement in infants born preterm: a randomized controlled trial
Jill C Heathcock1, James C Cole Galloway
1Division of Physical Therapy, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA. jill.heathcock@osumc.edu
Insights
Preterm infants can reach toys with their feet before their hands. Movement training enhanced this early foot-toy interaction, suggesting a potential early intervention for developmental delays.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Pediatrics
- Motor Development in Infants
- Early Intervention Strategies
Background:
- Healthy full-term infants reach for toys with their feet before their hands.
- Movement training has been shown to advance feet reaching in healthy infants.
- Feet reaching has not been previously studied in preterm infants, who may experience delayed hand reaching.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if preterm infants (born <33 weeks gestational age) reach for toys with their feet by 2 months corrected age, preceding hand reaching.
- To determine if movement training can advance feet reaching in this population.
Main Methods:
- A randomized controlled trial involving 26 preterm infants.
- Infants were assigned to daily movement training or social training groups for 8 weeks.
- Videotaped assessments occurred every two weeks from 2 to 4 months corrected age.
Main Results:
- All infants contacted toys with their feet at 2 months corrected age, before consistent hand contact.
- The movement training group showed significantly more and longer foot-toy contacts after 8 weeks compared to the social training group.
Conclusions:
- Movement experiences promote feet reaching in preterm infants, similar to hand reaching.
- Feet-oriented play may serve as an early intervention for object interaction in infants with movement impairments.
- Further research is recommended to explore the long-term benefits of early leg movement promotion.
Background:
Previous work has shown that full-term infants who were healthy contacted a toy with their feet several weeks before they did so with their hands and that movement training advanced feet reaching. Certain populations of preterm infants are delayed in hand reaching; however, feet reaching has not been investigated in any preterm population.
Objective:
The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether preterm infants born at less than 33 weeks of gestational age contacted a toy with their feet at 2 months of corrected age, before doing so with their hands, and whether movement training advanced feet reaching.
Design:
This study was a randomized controlled trial.
Methods:
Twenty-six infants born preterm were randomly assigned to receive daily movement training or daily social training. During the 8-week training period, the infants were videotaped in a testing session every other week from 2 to 4 months of age.
Results:
Both groups contacted the toy with their feet at 2 months of age during the first testing session prior to training, at an age when no infants consistently contacted the toy with their hands. After 8 weeks of training, the movement training group displayed a greater number and longer duration of foot-toy contacts compared with the social training group.
Conclusions:
These results suggest that movement experiences advance feet reaching as they do for hand reaching. For clinicians, feet-oriented play may provide an early intervention strategy to encourage object interaction for movement impairments within the first months of postnatal life. Future studies can build on these results to test the long-term benefit of encouraging early purposeful leg movements.
