Testing kinaesthetic acuity in preschool children

Abstract

Attempts to describe the kinaesthetic development of young children have been limited by the use of tasks winch are designed for older children and inappropriate for testing those of preschool age. A task designed specifically to test kinaesthetic acuity in preschool aged children was developed, and the performance of a 3‐ to 4‐year‐old group compared with that of a 5‐ to 6‐year‐old group. The task involved a passive hand movement to 1 of 16 positions with the hand hidden from the child's view, the child identifying the position to which their hand had been moved by a verbal response (naming the animal pictured at mat location). The results indicated that children as young as 3 years of age have considerable kinaesthetic sensitivity, and that by 5 to 6 years the ability to utilise kinaesthetic cues to identify hand position is very good. The older group performed significantly better than the younger group. A sex difference in kinaesthetic acuity at 3 to 4 years of age was also revealed, with boys of this age performing more accurately than girls. This difference was not evident in children of 5 to 6 years of age.