Age-dependent gait characteristics and associations with cognition, motor behavior, injuries, and psychosocial functioning were investigated in 138 typically developing children aged 6.7-13.2 years (M = 10.0 years). Gait velocity, normalized velocity, and variability were measured using the walkway system GAITRite without an additional task (single task) and while performing a motor or cognitive task (dual task). Assessment of children's cognition included tests for intelligence and executive functions; parents reported on their child's motor behavior, injuries, and psychosocial functioning. Gait variability (an index of gait regularity) decreased with increasing age in both single-and dual-task walking. Dual-task gait decrements were stronger when children walked in the motor compared to the cognitive dual-task condition and decreased with increasing age in both dual-task conditions. Gait alterations from single-to dual-task conditions were not related to children's cognition, motor behavior, injuries, or psychosocial functioning.

Gait and its associations with prewalking motor milestones, motor skills, and age were investigated in 32 children with infantile/atypical autism and 36 typically developing controls. Gait was assessed using GAITRite recordings of spatiotemporal and variability gait parameters. Parents reported their child's prewalking motor milestones. Motor skills were assessed using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children. Children with infantile/atypical autism showed higher gait variability than controls, indicating a less regular walking pattern. In children with infantile/atypical autism gait variability was negatively associated with motor skills, but there was no such association with prewalking motor milestones. The higher gait variability in children with infantile/atypical autism showed an age-dependent decrease, suggesting that their gait regularity converges toward that of typically developing children.

For more than a century the veracity of Spearman’s postulate that there is a nearly perfect correspondence between general intelligence and general sensory discrimination has remained unresolved. Most studies have found significant albeit small correlations. However, this can be used neither to confirm nor dismiss Spearman’s postulate, a major weakness of previous research being that only single discrimination capacities were considered rather than general discrimination. The present study examines Spearman’s hypothesis with a sample of 1,330 5- to 10-year-old children, using structural equation modeling. The results support Spearman’s hypothesis with a strong correlation (r = .78). Results are discussed in terms of the validity of the general sensory discrimination factor. In addition, age-group-specific analyses explored the age differentiation hypothesis.

Copyright and reuse:The Warwick Research Archive Portal (WRAP) makes this work by researchers of the University of Warwick available open access under the following conditions. Copyright © and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable the material made available in WRAP has been checked for eligibility before being made available.Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or, version of record, if you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the 'permanent WRAP url' above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. measures in very preterm children during school-age is rare. Eighty-five healthy children born very preterm (<32nd gestational week) and 91 full-term children aged 7-12 years were recruited for the present study. To assess HPA axis activity, salivary cortisol was measured at awakening, 10, 20, and 30 min later. In addition, hair cortisol and cortisone concentrations were quantified using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry to assess cumulative endocrine activity over the preceding months. One night of in-home polysomnographic sleep assessment was conducted to assess sleep duration, sleep continuity, and sleep architecture. Children born very preterm showed significantly lower levels of cortisol at awakening and lower overall post-awakening cortisol secretion, lower cortisone in hair, and earlier sleep onset than full-term children. Across the whole sample, overall postawakening cortisol secretion was positively related to sleep onset time and negatively to sleep duration.The association between prematurity status and post-awakening cortisol secretion was partially mediated by earlier sleep onset time. In conclusion, this study provides evidence for a possible downregulation of the HPA axis activity and slightly earlier sleep phase in very preterm children during school age.

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Aims: This study examined whether the association between sleep duration, as well as sleep continuity, and cognitive function differs between normally developing preterm children compared to full-term children during middle childhood. Methods: A total of 58 early preterm (<32 weeks' gestation) and 55 full-term children, aged 6-10 years and enrolled in elementary school, were assessed on sleep duration, sleep continuity and cognitive function. We used in-home polysomnographic recordings of total sleep time, sleep efficiency and nocturnal awakenings. Cognitive tests included intelligence, arithmetic, selective attention, verbal memory, and visuospatial memory. Results: Preterm children showed poorer performance in intelligence, arithmetic, selective attention, and visuospatial memory (d = 0.38-0.79, p < 0.05) and more objectively assessed nocturnal awakenings (d = 0.40, p = 0.03) than full-term children. Associations of sleep efficiency and cognitive functions (intelligence, arithmetic, selective attention, visuospatial memory) were positive and stronger for preterm children (β = 0.17-0.31, p < 0.05), while they were nonsignificant for full-term children. Conclusion: Results confirm lower cognitive test scores and more nocturnal awakenings in normally developing early preterm children compared to full-term children. Furthermore, poor sleep efficiency may aggravate cognitive deficits, particularly in children who are more vulnerable due to premature birth.

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