Sitting and looking: a comparison of stability and visual exploration in infants with typical development and infants with motor delay.

This longitudinal study focused on the interaction of developing sitting postural control with look time, which served as a measure for cognitive processing. Twenty-eight typically developing infants and 16 infants with motor delays were evaluated using center-of-pressure measures to assess stability of sitting postural control and videography to assess look time at objects, at three progressive stages of sitting development. Results indicated that look time decreased significantly (p < .001) in conjunction with a significant increase in postural stability (p < .001) in both groups as sitting progressed to independence. Infants with motor delays showed significantly longer looks when compared to typical infants (p = .02) at the middle stage of sitting. We conclude that developmental changes in look time are related to changes in sitting postural control, and infants with motor delay may have greater difficulty looking during emerging postural control skills in sitting. Early interventionists may use look time as an indicator of sitting effort and cognitive processing during assessment and program planning.