The sticky mittens paradigm: A critical appraisal of current results and explanations

Almost two decades ago, the sticky mittens paradigm was demonstrated as a way to train reaching and grasping behaviors in pre-reaching infants, and consequently improve visual attentional abilities. In that first study, Needham and colleagues fitted 3-month-old infants with Velcro loop-covered mittens and allowed them to interact with Velcro hook-covered toys over the course of 2 weeks. In this review, we scrutinize the 17 studies that have followed those first sticky mittens results in regards to the motor, social perception, and visual attentional domains. Furthermore, we discuss the proposed mechanisms of the sticky mittens training. Current evidence strongly suggests that sticky mittens training facilitates social perception, which is consistent with prior correlational work showing links between action production and action perception. However, studies targeting motor and visual attentional abilities have too diverse results to warrant firm conclusions. We conclude that future research should focus on uncovering if there is a connection between sticky mittens training and motor behavior.