Kinematic analysis of prehension movements in children

The kinematics of the reach-to-grasp movement were analyzed in ten healthy children (age 6-7 years) under different experimental conditions: distance and size of the target objects, and visual feedback during the reach were varied in a within-subjects design. To assess age-related differences, the same experiments were performed in ten healthy adults. The experimental set-up was scaled according to body proportions to obtain equivalent conditions for both age groups. The temporal coupling between the transport and grasp components of prehension was very similar in children and adults. Peak transport velocity increased by the same factor in both age groups when the object distance was doubled. However, the decelerating approach phase was shorter in the children, who opened their hands relatively wider than adults. Unlike the adults, children failed to scale their grip aperture according to object size when visual feedback during the movement was lacking. The grip aperture increased with object distance in adults, but not in the children. The intrasubject variability of kinematic parameters was distinctly higher in the children. The results suggest that grip formation is not yet mature at an age of 6-7 years, depending more on visual feedback than in adult prehension.