Acquisition of the lateral inconsistency in involuntary behaviour of upper limbs in 12-year-old children during walking at moderate speed

The aim of this work was to investigate possible lateralisation in the behaviour of periodic motion of the human upper limb, during normal walking at a comfortable speed of locomotion. Ten healthy pre-adolescent, strongly right-handed, 12-year-old males participated in the experiment. Participants were walking on a treadmill with a standardised velocity of 1.1 m/s (comfortable speed for all of them). A video analysis system with Silicon software was used to synchronically measure various angles of arms and forearms. The initial, final and interim angular positions of both arms and forearms in 10 cycles of each participant were compared in terms of variations (cycle to cycle) between both upper extremities at corresponding phases of each cycle for distal and proximal segments, respectively. We compared the coefficients of variation in relation to the spatial and temporal data of both limbs and their angular velocities. In addition we investigated the level of cycle-to-cycle regularity (constancy) of behaviour in relation to various positions, periods and velocities of movement of upper extremities (specifically arms and forearms) using the Eta non-linear method of correlation. All participants exhibited a lower level of regularity for the distal segments. The spatial and temporal variations in the dominant limb were also greater than the non-dominant limb for all participants. This may be due to a larger contribution from the right-sided muscles that are considered to be the main contributing factor to the motion of the dominant upper limb during walking, rather than simply gravity force acting alone. A possible practical application of this information may be useful in the objective clinical identification of the level of dominance of the upper extremity (arm plus forearm), in addition to ‘traditional’ handedness.