Early Gross Motor Milestones
Many parents of children born with an upper limb difference have questions about how it might impact their child’s physical development — especially in the first few years of life. Will they crawl on their hands and knees? Will they walk later than other children?
To help answer these questions, we conducted a study exploring gross motor development in children with upper limb differences, focusing on the key milestones from sitting to walking.
We surveyed parents of 86 children with a congenital upper limb difference affecting one arm. Our sample included children with above- and below-elbow differences.
Parents were asked to recall the age at which their child reached key gross motor milestones including sitting, standing, crawling, and walking.
Findings:
On average, limb-different children reached their milestones within the typical range outlined by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Compared to their limb-typical peers, limb-different children showed only small delays, ranging from 2 to 6 weeks. The largest delay was seen in walking independently.
Limb-different children tended to crawl at the same time as their limb-typical peers, but used a much wider range of strategies. These included commando crawling and bum-shuffling.
Alternative crawling strategies were more common in children with above-elbow differences.
Importantly, the way children crawled did not affect when they began walking.
