title: Ability of young children to button and unbutton clothes.
abstract: From 2 years of age, children enjoy trying to button and unbutton their jacket. The clothing of the children at this stage should have the form which fits their motor skills so as to develop their interest in buttons and to help their study in manipulating buttons. We observed processes of dressing and actions of buttoning and unbuttoning at the nursery school, for children in the 3.3-5.9 year range. Also, we experimented about dressing mainly for children in 2 year range to observe the process of manipulating buttons. As factors of experiment, we took two buttonhole directions (vertical and across) and three sizes of buttons (1, 2, 3 cm). The direction of buttonholes was significant at the 5% level. We recognized that buttonholes in the vertical direction were easier for children to button. We came to the following conclusion: for an open front of children's clothing, buttons having a 2 cm diameter and buttonholes in the vertical direction were the best.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Home Economics, Showa Women's University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Inomata
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Simizu
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003020:Clothing; D006801:Humans; D011597:Psychomotor Performance