Stability of timing variability in clapping for young children

Abstract

Timing control has been thought to be a crucial aspect of skilled behavior. Over the past dozen years, Zelaznik, Ivry and Spencer have promoted the notion that timing processes can be classified as being event like or emergent. The former process uses a representation of the temporal interval (via a clock-like process) to control movement, while the emergent process produces timed behavior indirectly via dynamical trajectory processes. Little is known about the developmental time course of timing. In the present paper we report on sixty children between ages 4 and 6 who performed a timed clapping task at a 600 ms period at time one, and then one year later. Clapping is a timing task that young children can understand, and provide reasonable performance. We used the classic synchronization-continuation procedure. We found that over fifty percent of the timing variance was common across two years. Children who stutter showed a similar level of shared timing variance across the two years. We also found no differences in timing precision between children who do and do not stutter during year one and year two. We interpret these results as evidence against the notion that event timing is a determinant of stuttering and that the stability of timing at a very young age provides support for the idea that event timing is a stable developed timing process.

Acknowledgments: Supported by NIH