Effects of Different Concurrent Cognitive Tasks on Temporal-Distance Gait Variables in Children

Abstract

The study was designed to investigate the influence of three different concurrent cognitive tasks on gait characteristics in five- to seven-year-old children. Twenty-seven subjects, 16 boys and 11 girls, between the ages of 5.0 and 7.8 years (M = 6.4 +/- 0.8 years) participated in the study. A dual-task paradigm was used. Each subject performed the following single and dual walking tasks: walking alone, walking while identifying pictures of common objects (visual identification), walking while identifying sounds (auditory identification), and walking while retaining a series of numbers in memory (memorization). Gait speed, cadence, and step length were compared among the four gait tasks using repeated-measures analysis of covariance. Gait speed was lower under all dual-task conditions compared to the single-task walking condition. Both cadence and step length decreased with concurrent performance of the visual and auditory identification tasks, while the memorization task affected only cadence. The interference effects of the cognitive tasks on gait were largest for the auditory identification task and smallest for the memorization task. These results indicate that children may have difficulty maintaining motor performance while simultaneously processing cognitive information.