Pediatrics & Therapeutics
Open Access

Which relevant information do preschoolers and scholars perceive and select for imitating a series of walking movements?

Joint Event on 17^th American Pediatrics Healthcare & Infectious Diseases Congress & 17^th Annual World Congress on Neonatology

June 27-28, 2018 | Vancouver, Canada

Lazhar Labiadh

UFR-STAPS, France

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Pediatr Ther

Abstract :

Imitation is commonly considered as a hierarchically organized mechanism. It is frequently used to explore various scientific fields, but few works have studied how locomotion movements are imitated. The current study aims to investigate and expand the findings regarding which information children of different age groups select and integrate for performing a series of locomotion movements. One hundred and thirty children from 3.5 to 7.5 years of age were instructed to walk in stepalternating mode on and between obstacles in different imitation forms following gestural demonstration, and in a control condition following verbal instructions. The childrenâ??s performances were videotaped, coded in binary data, and then put into percentage. Results showed first, that all children performed the modeled walking movements, but did not necessarily do so with the same step-alternating mode or footedness and second, that the model helped the preschoolers to adopt his stepalternating mode and stabilized the schoolers from the age of 5.5-year-olds. These findings reveal that the age of 5.5 is crucial for imitating a walking task while overcoming the constraints of balance and propulsion.

Biography :

Lazhar Labiadh has completed his PhD in STAPS: Science, Technical of Sports and Physical Activities from Paris Descartes University. The aim of my research is the study of perception/action links mechanisms for imitating a series of successive motor actions, concerning the locomotion movements and manual gestures and their laterality and coordination, memory, spatial framworks (ego and allocentric), both in healthy children and pathological and vulnerable populations (autism and alzheimer). In the developmental psychology and handicap farmework, I also study the well-being via sportive and physical activities over their relationships and psychological dimensions.

E-mail: lazharlabiadh@yahoo.fr