Before time powered mobility - development in typically developing infants
Nilsson, Lisbeth LU
(2024)
European Seating Symposium
- Abstract
- Background: Infants and toddlers with disabilities follows the same developmental paths as typically developing children, but build individual patterns of achievements in their own pace. Aim: To illustrate development in infants who got opportunities to experience locomotion before the age when they developed the physical abilities to move by rolling, crawling, creeping or walking. Method: Re-analysis of old video-data collected with typically developing infants testing a joystick-operated powered wheelchair. The analysis of infants’ tool-use behaviours were compared to current knowledge of infant development. The video-data included 40 tests with 17 infants, 3-12 months old, who made one test/month (15-30 minutes), at up to six occasions.... (More)
- Background: Infants and toddlers with disabilities follows the same developmental paths as typically developing children, but build individual patterns of achievements in their own pace. Aim: To illustrate development in infants who got opportunities to experience locomotion before the age when they developed the physical abilities to move by rolling, crawling, creeping or walking. Method: Re-analysis of old video-data collected with typically developing infants testing a joystick-operated powered wheelchair. The analysis of infants’ tool-use behaviours were compared to current knowledge of infant development. The video-data included 40 tests with 17 infants, 3-12 months old, who made one test/month (15-30 minutes), at up to six occasions. Results: Experiences of locomotion developed the infants understanding of cause effect – act on joystick makes the powered wheelchair move – for some already at the age of 3-4 months. Furthermore, attention and wakefulness increased and use of hand/s to touch surfaces and grasp things became more exploratory. The locomotion experience increased attention, perception and understanding of the situation, which encouraged the infants to do further explorations. Up to the age of 7-8 months infants stayed engaged in the situation longer than expected. Conclusion: Before time experiences of self-produced locomotion in a powered wheelchair developed attention-regulation, exploratory behaviour, tool-use understanding and self-consciousness in typically developing infants. These abilities are important for acting and interacting with the social and physical environment and growing consciousness of the world. Thereby, these findings support early provision of powered mobility to infants, toddlers and children with disabilities. References: Nilsson, L. and P. Nyberg (1998). Training in powered wheelchair, benefits for individuals at an early developmental level. Poster presentation. The 12th International Congress of the World Federation of Occupational Therapists, Montreal, Canada. Kenyon, L. and L. Nilsson (2021). Early tool-use learning: Using Powered Mobility to Enhance Development. 33rd Annual EACD Meeting: European Academy of Childhood Disability. Virtual conference. Learning objectives: Gaining increased awareness of how experiences of self-produced locomotion can impact on infants’ general development Perceiving infants as beings with unexpected abilities for tool-use and interaction with the world. Supporting provision of opportunities for powered mobility to infants and toddlers with disabilities. (Less)
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https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/59e29c35-1968-415f-a1cd-648f54601698
- author
- Nilsson, Lisbeth
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2024-06-20
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- published
- subject
- conference name
- European Seating Symposium
- conference location
- Dublin, Ireland
- conference dates
- 2024-06-19 - 2024-06-21
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 59e29c35-1968-415f-a1cd-648f54601698
- date added to LUP
- 2024-08-12 11:20:35
- date last changed
- 2024-08-12 12:55:11
@misc{59e29c35-1968-415f-a1cd-648f54601698,
abstract = {{Background: Infants and toddlers with disabilities follows the same developmental paths as typically developing children, but build individual patterns of achievements in their own pace. Aim: To illustrate development in infants who got opportunities to experience locomotion before the age when they developed the physical abilities to move by rolling, crawling, creeping or walking. Method: Re-analysis of old video-data collected with typically developing infants testing a joystick-operated powered wheelchair. The analysis of infants’ tool-use behaviours were compared to current knowledge of infant development. The video-data included 40 tests with 17 infants, 3-12 months old, who made one test/month (15-30 minutes), at up to six occasions. Results: Experiences of locomotion developed the infants understanding of cause effect – act on joystick makes the powered wheelchair move – for some already at the age of 3-4 months. Furthermore, attention and wakefulness increased and use of hand/s to touch surfaces and grasp things became more exploratory. The locomotion experience increased attention, perception and understanding of the situation, which encouraged the infants to do further explorations. Up to the age of 7-8 months infants stayed engaged in the situation longer than expected. Conclusion: Before time experiences of self-produced locomotion in a powered wheelchair developed attention-regulation, exploratory behaviour, tool-use understanding and self-consciousness in typically developing infants. These abilities are important for acting and interacting with the social and physical environment and growing consciousness of the world. Thereby, these findings support early provision of powered mobility to infants, toddlers and children with disabilities. References: Nilsson, L. and P. Nyberg (1998). Training in powered wheelchair, benefits for individuals at an early developmental level. Poster presentation. The 12th International Congress of the World Federation of Occupational Therapists, Montreal, Canada. Kenyon, L. and L. Nilsson (2021). Early tool-use learning: Using Powered Mobility to Enhance Development. 33rd Annual EACD Meeting: European Academy of Childhood Disability. Virtual conference. Learning objectives: Gaining increased awareness of how experiences of self-produced locomotion can impact on infants’ general development Perceiving infants as beings with unexpected abilities for tool-use and interaction with the world. Supporting provision of opportunities for powered mobility to infants and toddlers with disabilities.}},
author = {{Nilsson, Lisbeth}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{06}},
title = {{Before time powered mobility - development in typically developing infants}},
year = {{2024}},
}