The Costs and Benefits of Development: The Transition From Crawling to Walking

Child Development Perspectives
Karen E Adolph, Catherine S Tamis-LeMonda

Abstract

The transition from crawling to walking requires infants to relinquish their status as experienced, highly skilled crawlers in favor of being inexperienced, lowskilled walkers. Yet infants willingly undergo this developmental transition, despite incurring costs of shaky steps, frequent falls, and inability to gauge affordances for action in their new upright posture. Why do infants persist with walking when crawling serves the purpose of independent mobility? In this article, we present an integrative analysis of the costs and benefits associated with crawling and walking that challenges prior assumptions, and reveals deficits of crawling and benefits of upright locomotion that were previously overlooked. Inquiry into multiple domains of development reveals that the benefits of persisting with walking outweigh the costs: Compared to crawlers, walking infants cover more space more quickly, experience richer visual input, access and play more with distant objects, and interact in qualitatively new ways with caregivers.

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Citations

Feb 3, 2016·Frontiers in Psychology·Arthur M Glenberg, Justin Hayes
Nov 27, 2015·Maternal & Child Nutrition·Leila Margaret Larson, Aisha K Yousafzai
Jun 18, 2016·Frontiers in Psychology·Claudio LongobardiMichele Settanni
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Oct 27, 2017·Developmental Science·John M FranchakKaren E Adolph
Sep 27, 2018·Annual Review of Psychology·Karen E Adolph, Justine E Hoch
Jan 9, 2019·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Gary R WatmoughJens-Christian Svenning
Mar 14, 2020·Perspectives on Psychological Science : a Journal of the Association for Psychological Science·Moritz KösterStefanie Hoehl
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Sep 15, 2019·Scientific Reports·Lucilla CardinaliMonica Gori
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Feb 9, 2021·Developmental Science·Kelsey L West, Jana M Iverson

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