Bartonek Åsa, Guariglia Cecilia, Piccardi Laura
Neuropaediatric Unit, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet, S-171 76 Stockholm, Sweden.
Department of Psychology, "Sapienza" University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy.
Children (Basel). 2022 Oct 26;9(11):1629. doi: 10.3390/children9111629.
Based on studies of children with motor disabilities on topographic working memory (TWM), no influence of age was reported. The only differences were in the degree of mobility and exploration of the environment. The more active a child was in exploring the environment, the less his/her TWM was poor. However, in typically developing children (TD), exploration of the environment increases with increasing age, and age-related effects have been described. Here, we aim at investigating TWM considering age in TD with the additional question of whether WM in the reaching space differed from that in the navigational space requiring body movements. We hypothesized that WM in both spaces would improve correspondingly with increasing age, assuming that the greater the autonomy in exploring the environment, the better TWM becomes.
120 children (5-16 years old) performed the Corsi Block-Tapping test (CBT) and the Walking Corsi test (WalCT).
Statistical analyses evidenced significantly increasing WalCT and CBT spans between each school stage, except in the CBT span between middle stage (MS) and upper stage (US). CBT spans were significantly higher than in the WalCT in the pre-school, lower stage, and MS, with the CBT span increasing until MS, which is sufficient for using spatial orientation strategies effectively.
When navigation is gradually controlled, a child may be able to pay increasingly more attention to wayfinding and behavior in traffic. Since the US group even presented as good in the WalCT as young adults living in metropolitan environments, assuming that children may gain spatial orientation from having opportunities to move in their surroundings, this is also relevant for children with motor disabilities.
基于对运动障碍儿童地形工作记忆（TWM）的研究，未报告年龄的影响。唯一的差异在于活动能力和对环境的探索程度。儿童在探索环境中越活跃，其TWM表现越差的情况越少。然而，在正常发育儿童（TD）中，对环境的探索随着年龄增长而增加，并且已经描述了与年龄相关的影响。在此，我们旨在研究TD中考虑年龄因素的TWM，并探讨伸手可及空间中的工作记忆（WM）是否与需要身体移动的导航空间中的WM不同这一额外问题。我们假设，随着年龄增长，两个空间中的WM都会相应改善，前提是在探索环境中自主性越强，TWM表现越好。
120名儿童（5 - 16岁）进行了科西块敲击测试（CBT）和行走科西测试（WalCT）。
统计分析表明，除了初中阶段（MS）和高中阶段（US）之间的CBT跨度外，各学校阶段之间的WalCT和CBT跨度均显著增加。在学前、小学低年级和初中阶段，CBT跨度显著高于WalCT，且CBT跨度一直增加到初中阶段，这足以有效运用空间定向策略。
当导航逐渐得到控制时，儿童可能能够越来越多地关注交通中的寻路和行为。由于高中组在WalCT中的表现甚至与生活在大都市环境中的年轻人一样好，假设儿童可以通过有机会在周围环境中移动来获得空间定向能力，这对运动障碍儿童也具有相关性。
