The influence of ambient lighting levels on postural sway in healthy children

The influence of gaze behaviour on postural control from early childhood into adulthood

“…The EA difference between the EC and GF conditions (i.e., between eyes closed and eyes open) did not depend on age. This finding is at odds with studies claiming that vision improves postural control more in children than in adults [2][3][4][5][6] and with those claiming the opposite [7][8][9]. Moreover, on the whole our findings underline the importance of studying postural control under conditions of natural gaze behaviour: The lower postural stability in children seems to be strongly linked to head stabilisation deficits during natural gaze behaviour in this age group.…”

“…Some researchers claimed that vision improves postural control more in children than in adults [2][3][4][5][6], while others found that vision improves postural control in adults but not in young children [7][8][9]. Riach and Hayes [8] even state that vision might hinder postural control in children.…”

Balance ability of 7 and 10 year old children in the population: Results from a large UK birth cohort study

“…Although this result is what one might expect and has indeed been found consistently with adolescent and adult subjects [3,32,33] previous studies of children have failed to reach a consensus. Wolff et al [10] and Blanchard et al [34] both found that school-age children were more unstable with their eyes closed, whereas Riach and Hayes [35] concluded that closing the eyes either made no difference or even improved standing balance in children aged 2-14 years. Nolan et al [12] found that with children aged 9-16 years, closing the eyes affected sway in one direction only for some groups of children.…”

Development of postural balance in Brazilian children aged 4-10 years compared to young adults

“…Some studies have reported maturation of the proprioceptive system at around 3-4 years of age as a visual influence on standing stability is established at adult levels only by the age of 9 to 15 years [5][6][7][8] . Most of these studies used stabilometry as an assessment method to quantify postural balance 2,7,9,10 . However, there is still limited data on the organization of visual, proprioceptive and vestibular systems regarding posture control in children.…”