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 Most babies will start to pull themselves up to a standing position
by around nine months of age and be able to stand without support by
around 12 months, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC).
Overall, the roughly 600 infants in the study stood up with
assistance by around 8.9 months on average.
Babies who didn’t pull themselves into a standing position until 11
months, however, had significantly lower cognitive and adaptive
skill scores on tests done at age four, the study found.
“While we see these associations, these differences do not
necessarily mean that the child is impaired in any way,” said senior
study author Edwina Yeung of the National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development.
“There have been very few previous studies looking into this
question even though it’s so important to understand these very
early steps of development,” Yeung added by email. “Among studies
which have examined the connection, they have shown that earlier
timing of gross motor milestone achievement is associated with
better memory and processing speed later in childhood.”
For the current study, researchers focused on standing and other
gross motor skill milestones from four to 24 months in children
without any diagnosed developmental delays.
The mothers in the study were about 32 years old on average. Most of
them were married, had private health insurance, and either a
college or graduate school degree. About 45 percent of the women had
infertility treatments.
The infants were born at 38 weeks gestational age on average, about
one week shy of when they would be considered full term.
Roughly 52 percent of the babies in the study were singletons, 43
percent were twins and 4 percent were triplets.
The connection between later standing and cognitive skills at age
four was only statistically meaningful for the singleton babies.
For the twins, the difference in test scores at age four wasn’t big
enough to rule out the possibility that it was due to chance.
One limitation of the study is that a large number of women didn’t
show up at clinic visits needed for their children to be assessed,
the authors note in the journal Pediatrics. Mothers who skipped
clinic visits were generally younger, less educated and less likely
to have private health insurance.
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Parents should interpret the study results cautiously, in part
because of issues with the study population, said Eliza Nelson, a
researcher at Florida International University who wasn’t involved
in the study.
“We have known for a long time that there is no one size fits all
pattern of motor development,” Nelson said by email.
Children will not necessarily develop more quickly or be smarter if
they achieve motor milestones at younger ages, noted Jana Iverson, a
psychology researcher at the University of Pittsburgh who wasn’t
involved in the study.
However, walking can influence language development because babies
can become more likely to start communicating about far away objects
and bringing objects to caregivers, Iverson said by email. Sitting
and crawling also change how babies perceive the world around them.
Parents can use these motor skill milestones as an opportunity to
help children with language development and cognitive skills.
“For example, if an infant crawls over to something on the other
side of the room, talk to her about it, or if an infant stands up
while holding a toy and makes eye contact, comment on the toy and
what the infant is doing,” Iverson said.
“These types of rich responses have been demonstrated time and again
to influence infants’ cognitive and language development in positive
ways,” Iverson added.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/292af2R Pediatrics, online June 27, 2016.
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