Getting into the Swing of things: An investigation into rhythmic unimanual coordination in typically developing children

Unimanual coordination is a vital component of everyday life and underpins successful engagement of many activities of daily living and physical activity participation. The ability to coordinate with environmental stimuli has been extensively studied in adults in a variety of situations. However, we know little about these processes in children and even less about how these processes change as age increases. This paper examines children's performance in a rhythmic unimanual coordination task using a handheld pendulum. Participants (aged 6, 9 and 11 years) manipulated the pendulum at 3 frequencies (preferred frequency, +20% of preferred and −20% of preferred frequency) in coordination with 3 stimuli (Visual, Auditory and Visual-Auditory combined). Results showed that children's coordination levels and movement variability improved with age, however still fell below those observed in adults. In addition children demonstrated preferences for visual stimuli or multisensory stimuli compared to auditory stimuli on their own Interestingly, children were found to demonstrate different movement amplitudes for −20%, preferred and +20% frequency conditions. In conclusion, children's unimanual coordination levels were found to follow the typical maturation process and improve with age. Further to this, findings suggest the potential benefit of multisensory information for uni manual coordination in children.