Movement training advances the emergence of reaching in infants born at less than 33 weeks of gestational age: a randomized clinical trial.
OBJECTIVE
This study had 2 purposes: (1) to compare the emergence of reaching in infants born full-term and infants born at less than 33 weeks of gestational age and (2) to evaluate the effectiveness of a movement training program on the emergence of reaching in this preterm population.


METHODS
Twenty-six infants born at less than 33 weeks of gestational age and with a birth weight less than 2,500 g were randomly assigned to receive 20 minutes of daily movement training (PT-M group) or daily social training (PT-S group) and were compared with 13 infants born full-term (FT-S group).


METHODS
Reaching and hand-object interactions were tested every other week for 8 weeks. At each visit, infants were allowed six 30-second opportunities to contact a midline toy.


RESULTS
The FT-S and PT-M groups reached earlier and more consistently than the PT-S group. Specifically, the subjects in the FT-S group contacted the toy for longer durations and with an open, ventral surface of their hand. The PT-M group demonstrated increases in the number of hand-object contacts, the number of consistent reaches, and the percentage of time interacting with the toy and the surface of hand-object contact.


CONCLUSIONS
This project demonstrates that there are early gross motor skill differences in infants born at less than 33 weeks of gestational age. A caregiver-based daily training program, however, is effective at lessening some, but not all, of these differences over the short term.
Heathcock
Jill C
JC
The Ohio State University, 453 Atwell Hall, Columbus, OH 43210, USA. jill.heathcock@osumc.edu
Lobo
Michele
M
Galloway
James C Cole
JC
D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology; D005865:Gestational Age; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007234:Infant, Premature / Q000502:physiology*; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D026741:Physical Therapy Modalities; D010988:Play and Playthings; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*