Product Description:
Infants and children with cerebral palsy (CP) often struggle to visually inspect objects because of poor neuromuscular control. The head and eyes must coordinate with the trunk to support gaze. Our previous studies have linked increasing postural stability in the sitting position during infancy to improvements in looking skill. We are now studying children with moderate to severe CP as they develop sitting postural control. We used an eye tracking system to determine the percent of time that children looked at two musical toys while either sitting with support or sitting freely. Typically developing infants at early and late stages of sitting were used for comparison. Our aim was to compare time of eye gaze and head orientation to objects in two conditions, supported and unsupported sitting. In both early sitting and mature sitting, the typically developing infants kept the head oriented to the toy for a greater percentage of time than the eyes, with more mature sitting provided overall a greater percent of time of both head and eyes on the objects. Trunk support during both early and mature sitting increased head orientation to the object. For children with CP, trunk support also increased head orientation to the object. However, eye gaze to the object was not consistently increased during supported sitting. In early sitting for both typical infants and children with CP, eye gaze to the object increased without trunk support, and in the infants with CP, eye gaze was greater than head orientation to the object during unsupported sitting. Regardless of sitting skill, or sitting support, the typical infants oriented both eyes and head toward the object for a greater percentage of time than the children with CP. This information supports the use of eye-tracking in motor control studies of children with movement disorders. Children with early postural control deficits may have alternate strategies for eye gaze, which can affect learning and behavior. Eye tracking describes these alternate strategies and measures specific increments of change due to intervention.
