title: How do children coordinate simultaneous upper and lower extremity tasks? The development of dual motor task coordination.
abstract: When performing simultaneous clapping with walking or galloping, adults adopt coupled, consistent and stable dual motor task coordination; do developmental trends in this coordination exist? In this study, we measured and compared coupling characteristics, consistency across trials and variability of phasing in 4-, 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds (n=44) as they also performed the same dual motor task. For walk/clap, children adopted specific coupling patterns like adults by 8 years and with the same consistency by 10 years. Across age, children became less variable in clap and step movements separately and as coupled together. In the gallop/clap, children did not resemble adults in coupling patterns by 10 years but all measures were becoming more consistent across age. We discuss dual motor task coordination as a function of age and task complexity using a "dynamic" perspective within a developmental context.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health and Exercise Sciences, University of Delaware, 141 Human Performance Laboratory, Newark, DE 19716, USA. getchell@udel.edu
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Getchell
authors.forename: Jill
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Whitall
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D035002:Lower Extremity; D009048:Motor Skills; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D034941:Upper Extremity