250 falls, no tears: New Purdue Health and Kinesiology study examines how young toddlers fall during play, how they recover

Paige Thompson, left and Purdue University Department of Health and Kinesiology graduate student, and Laura Claxton, health and kinesiology associate professor, stand in a free play area of the Purdue Motor Development Lab. The pair recently collaborated on a study that examined how 13-month-olds fell and how they recovered while holding objects.

Written by: Tim Brouk, tbrouk@purdue.edu

You’re walking along and you must see what Bob had for lunch. You open Instagram while strolling and suddenly the ground comes out from under you. Do you let that iPhone 15 fly, or do you cradle and protect it like a Purdue University wide receiver making a leaping touchdown catch? And how do you get up from the stumble? Do you set the phone down to get back on your feet?

Laura Claxton, associate professor for the Purdue Department of Health and Kinesiology and director of the Purdue Motor Development Lab, has studied this phenomenon in toddlers when they are holding objects like a toy or sippy cup. Her past work found babies beginning to stand can remain upright three times longer when holding an object than when they don’t due to a perceived focus on balance control. The next motor stage was to introduce steps. Along with her team of graduate and undergraduate students, Claxton has been examining fall recovery in walking toddlers for years. The latest study focused on 39 13-month-olds from the Greater Lafayette community carrying one object as they navigate a padded, colorful play area within her lab. Falls without carried objects were also noted.

“Thirteen months is when babies start walking on their own and when they first start walking, they fall a lot,” said Claxton, who was assisted by graduate student Paige Thompson and former student Emily Shalit (BS ’21) for the study. “They also carry objects with them a lot, so we were interested in this interaction between carrying objects and new walkers. Does that impact their falling and what happens to the object when they fall? Does that impact their ability to recover from their fall?”

Caregivers interacted with the child during a 20-minute nonstructured free-play session that saw the toddler walking around carrying one of 18 objects available. The child selected what object to check out on their own. Sometimes the child explored the area without holding an object. The objects included a soccer ball, rubber duckie, a block and other typical, child-friendly toys. Two cameras collected footage of how many times the child fell during those 20 minutes as well as how the children got up with one hand, both hands or no hands. The size and weight of the object were considered in the analysis.

“Infants this age fall a lot but they just kind of get right back up,” Claxon said. “A lot of research has shown that infants don’t give up. They kind of just fall down and then usually get back up. They usually aren’t hurt; they’re usually not upset and usually don’t cry. It’s pretty typical for them. It’s kind of one the amazing things about babies when learning how to walk — they’re so persistent. They just keep on.

“If we as adults fell 22 times in 20 minutes, we’d probably give up. We’d think something is wrong.”

The results found about half the falls occurred while holding toys while the other half, the children fell without holding anything. This meant that the object carriage did not make the child fall any more than a child not carrying an object. It was also recorded that the children dropped the object about half the time when falling. Recovery strategies found most children using one hand to get back up while still grasping a toy. Kids without toys still used one hand or no hands, again about 50% of the time.

“It shows how adaptive they are so that they could still maintain hold of the toy while they were falling and they didn’t have to drop it,” Thompson explained.

By studying fall recovery in young children, Claxton can correlate the innate strategies in children to better understand those sudden moments when adults fall, land and attempt to recover. The research also examines the development of fine motor skills in these children who are just getting used to moving upright and having the ability to grasp and carry objects.

Claxton will continue her work by switching up the weight variable of the object being carried, moving to heavier objects that might require two hands to hold. The work is consistent with Claxton’s research goal in understanding human motor development at its earliest stages. What can be learned from one-year-olds can be applied into motor development into adulthood.

“Human movement is so important for development — just the ability for infants to start reaching and manipulating objects. Once they start crawling and then walking, it opens up so many opportunities for them. So, this is really looking at how are they developing this skill. What factors are impacting it? If they’re carrying an object, is it positive or negative?” Claxton questioned. “This is really looking at their natural behavior and seeing how they are integrating these important skills like learning how to walk and holding objects. How are they learning this ability? This is a newer way to look at these developing motor abilities.”

The Purdue Motor Development Lab is always looking for young participants ages 2 years old and younger for studies. Please email motordev@purdue.edu to help with future research.