Show me the actual research on crawling (or rather, not crawling!) - Page 2

[marsupial-mom]

http://www.who.int/childgrowth/stand...dows_graph.pdf

^ World Health Org chart for gross motor skills

[BunnySlippers]

my dd crawled in her 11th month (might have been early 12th). Then in her 13th month she stood up, pushed off the wall and started to run. People were always saying 'she not crawling (or walking) yet? in utter disbelief, or worry
Every kid is different.

[Pandme]

Originally Posted by belltree

First, the WHO Milestone tables clearly shows the average of crawling to be 8.5months with a huge span of what is normal.

Second, 4.5% of Babies do in fact skip crawling. So did mine, who walked at 7 months.

I dislike the whole your baby might or will develop learning disabilities, might become autistic etc because he did not crawl. How the heck am I supposed to force a child to crawl that walks at 7 months? There might be a risk, but one cannot really enforce milestones or the order of milestones on the child. I prefer dealing with my child as it is and not making it fit some norm.

We do infant massage and midline crossings and he might learn cross crawling later on in life.

I agree with you, though I don't think that autism link exactly said if they don't crawl they could get autism. However, I found the article frustrating for other reasons. It even said in the article no two infants develop motor skills in the same way. But the whole article seemed to say if your kid does not do these milestones IN THIS EXACT WAY (doing them is no longer enough now they have to be done a certain way!?) that might be a flag for autism? I mean, are you kidding me?

I, for one, am sick of it. It's not enough that you worry about basically everything once they're born (before they're born even!). Let's invent new ways to a. make parents worry and b. make them feel guilty that they aren't doing right by their child. Just awesome.

[P.J.]

I don't have any personal experience, but a friend of mine has a son who's 20 (years, not months!!) and he never cross-crawled, just went straight to standing and walking (which he did very early, I think 9 months). Well, he turned out to be horribly dyslexic and still has a really hard time in lots of everyday situations because of it. My friend is convinced it's because he never got that brain exercise of having to cross-coordinate while crawling.

It always seemed kind of silly and unnatural to me how some parents are so obsessed with "tummy time" and basically forcing their kids to crawl before walking. But after hearing my friend's son's story I became more curious if there's really something to it, and when I have more time I want to look over some of the research links provided here.

[Pandme]

And my best friend walked at 7 months. Her family tried to force her to crawl but no dice. She has a Phd and is one of the smartest people I know. Huge reader too.

[Abraisme]

I agree with some of the other posters.. I have no idea how to force a child to do something before they do it on their own. I also have an early walker (9.5mo) who skipped crawling entirely. My family would say things like, "stop encouraging her to walk so much", uhm what? It's not like I forced her to stand and cruise all day long, it's what she wanted to do. She still can't crawl at 11mo, but can nearly run. I've tried to show her how to crawl, but who wants to do that when you can walk?

I think that it's fine to lets kids go at their own rate..

[belltree]

Another thought on that matter. What if skipping crawling is more a sign of thinking differently rather than forming the brain in a certain way?

Also, if 4.5% of the population skip crawling, and not all of them are dyslexic, dysgraphic, and autistic, there must be other factors come into play.

And what about countries, that have a higher rate of non-cross-crawlers, do they have a higher incidence of "learning disabilities"?

[BathrobeGoddess]

There is no research that I have seen that makes a cross crawling distinction for proper crawling, it just happens to be the most common posture babies use...I'm also not at all convinced that this has anything to do with the two hemispheres of the brain because in babies this young, they have not yet fully separated anyway, they still work mostly as a unit...so any posture of crawling would set up those visual brain pathways the same way...and some of the research agrees with me and some of it doesn't. When you're working with babies, we get a lot of conflicting outcomes...there just isn't anyway to ever know for sure what is going on in there...

The backward cause/effect studies show an increased risk for dyslexia and other reading problems for children who didn't crawl BUT this type of research has a bug flaw in that it often relies of the parents to remember back many years, so could actually be mistaken or they could lie (no idea why but it is a weird thing that does happen in research). Only a few very small studies(26 kids in a sample) have followed kids from infancy to school age but nothing on a large scale....that I have found in my research anyway.

Do I think crawling has a roll in our development. I personally do because why else would we have evolved to do it? Going straight to walking would make much more sense when it comes to vulnerability and safety as an infant in the wild. I don't pretend to have a clue what that is but I do think the commonly held believe that crawling does something to change the brain makes a lot of sense.


Off my academic soap box

[wombatclay]

I'd also like to point out that the majority of the studies in PubMed don't show any significant difference (in terms of neurological outcome) between children who crawled and those who didn't. You can check out the studies quoted above or search pubmed directly (it's free, it's user friendly, and it's a good database to know since it represents YOUR money at work... research that gets state/federal funding has to publish their results in pubmed). Try searching "locomotor" and "development".

The studies that do find a connection between cross crawling/midline crossing and neurological disorders often look at the lack of midline crossing as a symptom, not a cause of the disorder. While physical therapists find midline crossing to be an important tool, and many holistic care providers stress the importance of cross crawling... there isn't a lot of research backing up the importance of cross crawling as the "primary source" of midline crossing.

What I found from the published research is that BOTH crawling (in terms of moving around at will to explore) and midline crossing (in terms of brain development, visual/spacial tracking, etc) are important. But I didn't find anything that said the midline crossing activity had to be cross crawling. I'm guessing that cross crawling is simply a common source for this sort of midline crossing.

[Aeon077]

Both myself and my son never crawled. I scooted around on my butt. Still, till this day, my uncle calls me "Scooter". I would consider myself pretty agile and intelligent.
My son, who also never crawled, rolled around everywhere. He got pretty good at it too! He didn't walk until 13 mo, but he's a perfectly normal almost 3 year old now! He's fairly intelligent and we're pretty sure he'll do very well in sports!

[2boyzmama]

Thank you everyone!

And in the days since I posted this, he's getting even more mobile. He stops just short of a traditional cross crawl, he will lean forward from a sitting position and put on foot and one knee on the floor, and "crawl" that way. The leg that has the knee on the floor is tucked under his butt, not out behind him.

It seems to be working for him, he definitely gets from point A to point B intentionally. He is starting to get into everything, which is a good sign

The research behind it fascinates me!

[boobs4milk]

just wanted to say that my oldest never really cross crawled, either. she did a scootch thing on her butt and rolling, then pulled up and walked. after she learned to walk, she would ocassionally do this crab crawl (butt all the way up in the air) thing. she did have some reading comprehension issues later, BUT she also had seizures (BRE). she's a whiz at sports and has always been very active. she's smart, too, she's just a bit slower at reading due mostly to the seizures.

[kismetbaby]

No research to add, but I walked early (9m) before I ever crawled, pretty sure I never crawled much at all. And I am a smart, regular person today. Not only that, but I spent my teen years as a ballet dancer, so if anything I think my early walking/no crawling was a sign of physical prowess.

But I know yours isn't an early walker. . .I do think that there is a lot about being the youngest and being a "sitter" or being verbal before being physical. My youngest sister (with three big sibs to watch and to carry her around) was barely mobile at all by her 1st bday, but was talking in complete sentences. She was this little queen, bossing everyone around, but never having to move an inch. LOL. She's also "normal" today and perfectly physically capable (she played soccer in high school).

I think the fact that Gavin is mobile is your sign that everything is fine!

[Catubodua]

for what it's worth - a little girl in DS's daycare room is 15 months old and doesn't crawl at all. she get easily get in to a sitting position and from there she scoots around. while remaining in the upright sitting position.

her mom is a Ped and has said she's not the least bit worried about it and that her older son did something similar.