Abstract
Research shows that by the age of 5 years, children employ similar gait patterns during unobstructed walking in comparison to adults (Berger, Altenmueller, & Dietz, 1984; Samson et al., 2011). However, it's been suggested that the capacity to use anticipatory control in order to adapt gait is immature until 9 years of age (McFadyen, Malouin, & Dumas, 2001; Berard & Vallis, 2006). When avoiding a stationary obstacle along their pathway, young adults will avoid in the direction that affords more space to their travel path (Cinelli & Warren, 2008). Despite these findings, minimal research has examined the factors that play a role in affecting avoidance direction in children. Therefore, the objectives of the study are: 1) to determine how children choose a specific avoidance direction when circumventing a stationary obstacle in their path; 2) to determine whether the presence of a visible goal affects a child's avoidance direction. Preliminary research in our lab using children aged 7-8 years found that neither object location nor presence of a goal affected the side of avoidance. These findings suggest that children tend to avoid to a preferred side regardless of obstacle position or goal visibility and avoidance strategies are not influenced by perception of space. Therefore, current and future research in our lab includes a larger age range of children, between the ages of 6-8 and 10-12 years, with the thought that children in the latter group will act similar to young adults.
