Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Parental Values Are Associated With How Parents Feel About Their Infants' Sleep, but Not the Quality of Infants' Sleep.

Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies·2025
Same author

Night Sleep, Parental Bedtime Practices and Language Development in Low-Risk Preterm and Full-Term Late Talkers: A Longitudinal Study in the Third Year of Life.

Children (Basel, Switzerland)·2024
Same author

Real-time teaching and learning: Caregivers teaching infants to descend stairs.

Developmental psychology·2024
Same author

Focused attention as a new sitter: How do infants balance it all?

Infant behavior & development·2024
Same author

Three decades of infant motor development: Cohort effects in motor skill onsets.

Developmental psychology·2023
Same author

Author Correction: The impact of extreme summer temperatures in the United Kingdom on infant sleep: implications for learning and development.

Scientific reports·2023
Same journal

The interplay between Theory of Mind inferencing and visual attention in narrative comprehension in autistic preschoolers.

Journal of experimental child psychology·2026
Same journal

Executive function and preschoolers' responses to severe transgressions: implications for early forgiveness.

Journal of experimental child psychology·2026
Same journal

Shared cognitive risk factors underlying rapid automatized naming deficits for the comorbidity of developmental dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: A computational parameter estimation via Bundesen's theory of visual attention.

Journal of experimental child psychology·2026
Same journal

Do young children understand the objectivity of reality?

Journal of experimental child psychology·2026
Same journal

Learning words by ear or by eye: effects of modality on lexical configuration and lexicalization.

Journal of experimental child psychology·2026
Same journal

Thinking outside the Box: Causal uncertainty motivates children's over-imitation.

Journal of experimental child psychology·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 28, 2026

Measuring Neural Mechanisms Underlying Sleep-Dependent Memory Consolidation During Naps in Early Childhood
08:20

Measuring Neural Mechanisms Underlying Sleep-Dependent Memory Consolidation During Naps in Early Childhood

Published on: October 2, 2019

12.6K

Naps improve new walkers' locomotor problem solving.

Sarah E Berger1, Anat Scher2

  • 1Department of Psychology, College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Staten Island, NY 10314, USA.

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
|June 11, 2017
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

New research shows that sleep significantly improves problem-solving skills in newly walking infants. Napping after learning a new motor task enhances learning efficiency, unlike staying awake.

Keywords:
InfancyMemory consolidationMotor learningProblem solvingSleepWalking

More Related Videos

Asymmetric Walkway: A Novel Behavioral Assay for Studying Asymmetric Locomotion
08:19

Asymmetric Walkway: A Novel Behavioral Assay for Studying Asymmetric Locomotion

Published on: January 15, 2016

9.4K
Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task
11:18

Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task

Published on: June 1, 2015

11.2K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Feb 28, 2026

Measuring Neural Mechanisms Underlying Sleep-Dependent Memory Consolidation During Naps in Early Childhood
08:20

Measuring Neural Mechanisms Underlying Sleep-Dependent Memory Consolidation During Naps in Early Childhood

Published on: October 2, 2019

12.6K
Asymmetric Walkway: A Novel Behavioral Assay for Studying Asymmetric Locomotion
08:19

Asymmetric Walkway: A Novel Behavioral Assay for Studying Asymmetric Locomotion

Published on: January 15, 2016

9.4K
Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task
11:18

Quantifying Learning in Young Infants: Tracking Leg Actions During a Discovery-learning Task

Published on: June 1, 2015

11.2K

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Infant Motor Learning

Background:

  • Infants transitioning from crawling to walking face unique motor challenges.
  • The impact of sleep on early motor skill acquisition is not well understood.
  • Problem-solving in novel locomotor tasks requires integrating sensory and motor information.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the effect of sleep on infants' ability to learn a novel locomotor task.
  • To determine if napping facilitates the consolidation of motor learning in early development.
  • To examine sleep's role during the critical transition period between crawling and walking.

Main Methods:

  • 28 newly walking infants, recently transitioned from crawling, were trained on a tunnel navigation task.
  • Infants were randomly assigned to either a nap or a no-nap condition during a delay period.
  • Problem-solving efficiency was measured before and after the delay to assess learning.

Main Results:

  • The group that napped showed improved efficiency in solving the locomotor task from training to testing.
  • Infants who remained awake did not exhibit significant changes in problem-solving efficiency.
  • Sleep appears to play a crucial role in consolidating newly acquired motor skills.

Conclusions:

  • Sleep facilitates the learning and problem-solving of novel motor tasks in newly walking infants.
  • Napping aids in the consolidation of motor learning during a critical developmental window.
  • These findings highlight the importance of sleep for cognitive and motor development in infancy.