Introduction
Prematurity, defined as birth before 37 weeks of gestational age, affects millions of infants worldwide each year. Beyond immediate medical concerns, prematurity can influence long-term neurodevelopment, including motor exploration—the way infants explore their environment through movement. This article summarizes a comparative cross-sectional study examining how walking experience interacts with locomotor exploration in prematurely born infants compared with their full-term peers.
Background and Rationale
Locomotor exploration is a key indicator of early motor development and sensory-motor integration. In premature infants, incomplete intrauterine development and early medical interventions can alter neuromotor pathways, potentially impacting how they discover and navigate their surroundings. The study aims to clarify whether walking experience, broadly defined as the duration and quality of early upright mobility, modulates exploration behaviors in this vulnerable population.
Study Design and Methods
The research adopts a comparative cross-sectional design, enrolling two cohorts of infants aged 9 to 15 months: those born prematurely (<37 weeks GA) and those born at term (≥37 weeks GA). Within each cohort, participants were stratified by walking experience: non-walkers (not yet ambulant), early walkers (began standing or independent steps within a narrow age window), and established walkers (months of walking beyond the early window).
The primary outcome measured was locomotor exploration, captured via structured observational tasks and quantitative metrics such as spatial range, root-mean-square velocity during movement, and the diversity of exploratory strategies (e.g., cruising, cruising with stepping, independent steps). Secondary outcomes included environmental interaction, object exploration during movement, and caregiver-reported developmental milestones.
Key Findings
Across both groups, walking experience emerged as a significant moderator of locomotor exploration. In premature infants, those with higher walking experience demonstrated a broader spatial range and more varied movement strategies compared with non-walkers of the same gestational background. Notably, prematurity-related differences in exploration tended to diminish as walking experience increased, suggesting that upright mobility may partially compensate for early neuromotor delays. In full-term infants, walking experience correlated with robust exploration but with less pronounced differences between walking categories, indicating that prematurity remains a distinct factor influencing exploration trajectories even among ambulant peers.
Interpretation and Implications
The findings imply that walking experience can influence how prematurely born infants explore their world, potentially shaping cognitive and perceptual development through embodied learning. Early upright mobility may provide more opportunities for visual, auditory, and haptic feedback during movement, promoting neural circuit maturation involved in spatial navigation, object recognition, and social interaction. Clinically, these results support a nuanced approach to early intervention: encouraging safe, age-appropriate walking experiences could bolster locomotor exploration and downstream development in preterm children without delaying medical risk management.
Limitations and Future Directions
As a cross-sectional study, the results describe associations rather than causal relationships. Longitudinal follow-up is needed to determine whether differences in locomotor exploration linked to walking experience predict later cognitive and motor outcomes. Future work could integrate neuroimaging and biomechanical assessments to delineate the neural and muscular adaptations that accompany walking in premature infants.
Conclusion
Walking experience appears to shape locomotor exploration in prematurely born infants, with greater ambulatory experience associated with richer and more varied movement strategies. This supports incorporating walking-focused activities into early developmental care for preterm infants, aligned with safety and family-centered goals, to foster embodied exploration and potential downstream benefits in cognitive development.
