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. 2022 Dec;64(8):e22334.
doi: 10.1002/dev.22334.

Development and pilot testing of an early childhood somatosensory assessment: Somatosensory test of reaching

Virginia Way Tong Chu  1 , Stacey C Dusing  2
Affiliations

Development and pilot testing of an early childhood somatosensory assessment: Somatosensory test of reaching

Virginia Way Tong Chu et al. Dev Psychobiol. 2022 Dec.

Abstract

Thirty-two children (50% female, 59.3% White, 7-60 months), from middle to high socioeconomic status families, participated in pilot feasibility and validity testing of the somatosensory test of reaching (STOR). STOR tested the child's accuracy of reach to visual and somatosensory targets. All children were able to complete the assessment. Statistically significant differences were found between age groups (p = .0001), showing developmental trends, and between test conditions (p < .001), showing that the ability to reach to visible targets develops before somatosensory targets. STOR also showed a moderate correlation with the Developmental Assessment of Young Children 2nd edition. STOR appears to be a promising tool for assessing somatosensory processing in very young children, and it warrants additional testing in larger participant samples.

Keywords: early childhood; proprioception; somatosensory.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Study setup. (a) Setup showing the camera locations relative to the child. Sticker locations are for illustration purposes (*the two stickers are not placed at the same time). (b) Calculating contact distances in FIJI. Reaching for a visible target (left)—the distance is 0, if the child's finger is in contact with the sticker. Reaching for a somatosensory target (right)—the yellow line represents the shortest distance from the closest finger to the edge of the sticker. The image scale is set using the diameter of the dot sticker (standard length = ¾ inch), and the contact distance is calculated to be 0.673 inch.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Mean and standard deviation (error bars) of the contact distances for each age group. Contact distances was defined as the distance between the closest finger to the edge of the target sticker
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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