Vision Development Differences between Slow and Fast Motor Development in Typical Developing Toddlers: A Cross-Sectional Study

• Main Authors: Elena Pinero-Pinto, Verónica Pérez-Cabezas, Concepción De-Hita-Cantalejo, Carmen Ruiz-Molinero, Estanislao Gutiérrez-Sánchez, José-Jesús Jiménez-Rejano, José-María Sánchez-González, María Carmen Sánchez-González
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-05-01
• Series: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• Subjects: child development; motor skills; vision disorders; evaluation; physical therapy; optometry
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/10/3597

Many studies have established a relationship between visual function and motor development in toddlers. This is the first report to study two-year-olds via an assessment of their visual and motor skills. The purpose of this study is to describe the possible changes that can occur between visual and motor systems in typical developing toddlers. A total of 116 toddlers were included in this observational, descriptive, and cross-sectional study. Their mean age was 29.57 ± 3.45 months. Motor development variables studied were dominant hand/foot; stationary, locomotion, object manipulation, grasping, visual motor integration percentiles; gross motor, fine motor, and total motor percentiles; and gross motor, fine motor, and total motor quotients. Visual development variables were assessed including visual acuity, refractive error, ocular alignment, motor fusion and suppression, ocular motility, and stereopsis. Our findings demonstrated that typical developing toddlers with slow gross motor development had higher exophoria and further near point of convergence values compared to toddlers with fast gross motor development (<i>p</i> < 0.05). No statistically significant differences were found in visual acuity and stereopsis between slow and fast gross motor development toddlers.