Trends in the Development of Rhythmical Hand Behaviours in Infants

Abstract

Infants are reported to produce large amounts of rhythmical behaviours, like kicking, banging, rocking, waving, bouncing, swaying and such. The present study examined the development of rhythmical hand behaviours, in order to understand the trends in the emergence of these behaviours. Participants included nine infants who were longitudinally studied for the duration of 10 months, between 3 and 12 months of age. The infants were observed for six types of rhythmic behaviours (cycling, bang, swing, shake, flex and twist) as they co occurred with speech behaviors, and a measure of rate of co-occurrence was calculated. Results indicated that rhythmical behaviours were present from the young age of 3 months, with changes in the occurrence rate as they grew older. There were also variations seen in the rates of occurrence with respect to hand preference and some indicators of cultural variations with respect to few of these rhythmical behaviours.