| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 物理治療研究所 === 100 === Background and Purpose: A mature locomotion is reflected as an ability of assembling and maintaining a series of proper spatial and temporal relationship of pelvis, thigh, shank and foot. It is well known that the muscle strength, limb length and limb stability increase with growth in childhood. However, the developmental pattern of intra-limb coordination of locomotion tasks and the possible differences in the strategy of intra-limb coordination of locomotion tasks in preschool children and children of school age are yet clear. The purpose of this study was to examine the developmental pattern of the intra-limb coordination in typically developing (TD) children while they were performing three locomotion tasks. Methods: A total of 60 TD children with 20 of each age group (4-6 years, 7-9 years and 10-12 years) and 20 healthy young adults participated in the study and performed three locomotion tasks in self-selected speed: walking, consecutive forward jumping and consecutive forward hopping. A six camera motion capture system was used to collect the kinematic data of the lower limbs. The planar co-variation principles and the principal component analysis were used to analyze each segment elevation angle, their contribution into a planarity configuration and their inter-dependency. Results: The differences of range of elevation angle among groups existed in jumping and hopping tasks. TD children of 4-6 years and 7-9 years had larger range ankle elevation angle than young adults in both jumping (4-6 years vs. adults, p 〈 0.01; 7-9 years vs. adults, p = 0.034) and hopping (4-6 years vs. adults, p 〈 0.01; 7-9 years vs. adults, p = 0.036) tasks. With regards to the planarity index, the children of 4-6 years showed smaller index than young adults in walking and jumping tasks (walk, p = 0.011; jump, p 〈 0.01); Children with 4-6 years and of 7-9 years had smaller indices than young adults in hopping (4-6 years, p 〈 0.01; 7-9 years, p 〈 0.01), but there was not significant differences between children of 10-12 years and young adults in the hopping task. The differences among tasks in the ratio of λ1 to λ2 showed that the walking task had larger ratio compared to the jumping and hopping tasks (jump: p 〈 0.01; hop: p 〈 0.01). Conclusions: TD children at the age of 4-6 year may have already developed similar intra-limb coordination to adults in walking, jumping but not hopping until at the age of 10-12 year. However, younger children (4-6 years and 7-9 years) present inferior coordination in hopping with larger ankle elevation angle than elder participants (10-12 years TD and adults group). It may be due to the reason that younger children have insufficient muscle strength and joint stability over their distal limbs to accommodate the difficult locomotion task (hopping). Understanding the development of the intra-limb coordination of TD children may help with the evaluation of the motor strategy in children with motor coordination disorder.
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