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Crawling
Set.
Crawl!
Okay,
you want to know everthing about crawling.
That's cool,
but seems hardly possible in 10 minutes.
However, let's give it a try,
so fasten your seatbelts!
Only humans crawl, if we mean by crawling
self-propelled locomotion on hands and knees,
with the stomach off the floor.
In developmental books this is called: creeping.
The average child starts creeping at ten months of age.
Some creep several months earlier (6 months old),
others months later (13 months old).
But that's not to say that early creepers
are also early walkers, you never can tell.
The very first motion picture of a creeping child
was made by Muybridge in 1885.
Project twelve photographs of a creeping child in a row
and what you see is movement.
Incredible don't you think?
Yes indeed!
Some children attain olympic levels in creeping.
Here you see some all-out efforts.
The average creeping-speed of a baby
is about two kilometers per hour,
with an average distance per day of 200 meters.
All these experienced kids show
the so-called diagonal or cross-pattern creep.
Left hand - right knee,
right hand and left knee.
Like the locomotion pattern of a lizard.
It is said that there are also children
with a salamander-like creeping-pattern:
left knee and left hand,
followed by right knee and right hand.
But I did not run across them.
Some believe that creeping is simply
the consequence of maturation of the brain,
but this boy seems to counter this hypothesis,
he has verry little brain volume -
the colored parts in this MRI-scan -
but still can creep, walk and many more.
His neurologist goes to the other opposite:
he believes that training of creeping behaviors
will develop the boy's brain,
but that seems to me a far too optimistic idea.
Anyway,
children have to exercise a lot before they can creep.
After these tiring exercises,
some baby's develop certain
transitional creeping techniques.
This is a very special one.
The girl uses only her hands to move forwards.
Not very handy it seems,
and only possible on a smooth surface.
Other kids also mainly use their arms
and drag their knees under their stomach.
An occasionally seen variant
is the 'side-leg creeping',sometimes called the crab crawl.
But a crab moves sideways,
and baby's don't.
Side-leg creeping baby's use one foot
to produce some extra propulsion.
They invented this technique by themselves,
nobody taught them to do that,
and brain maturation seems also not a plausible explanation.
The technique cannot be found in any developmental book.
Interesting!
Creeping backward is difficult,
on smooth surfaces you can slide backwards,
but you must be an experienced creeper
to excecute this properly,
most of these kids can already walk.
Amazing is this boy,
he creeps backwards on command of his father.
He can walk!
Further, it was for me a big surprise to find babies
who creep on their elbows and knees.
Of course, we must not forget
that the majority of creeping baby's
first practiced another movement pattern,
namely: crawling, the self-propelled locomotion
by means of the limbs,
with the stomach sliding over the floor,
also called the marine- or army-crawl.
Many experienced crawlers
use both arms alternativly to move forward.
Yes, like the marines!
But again, things are always difficult at the start.
Only pushing with your feet produces little progression.
The crawling pattern becomes more and more coordinated.
Sometimes mainly one arm is used.
An often seen crawling technique
consists of the simultaneous use of both arms.
Related to this technique is push-up crawling.
Understandably, in particular on rugged surfaces
this technique is applied.
Now the stomach gets off the floor.
But the exception proves the rule.
This is Cheerio, not yet crawling.
3 days later
Here, on the carpet she showsa mixed crawling pattern.
Again 4 days later...
However, on the parquet she uses the push-up technique.
Again a week later...
Again a week later... Apparently she employs different movement patterns
on different surfaces.
1 1/2 week later
1 1/2 week later... A nice example of adaptive motor behavior.
and 2 weeks later...
and 2 weeks later... In about a month she seems to have acquired
the diagonal creeping pattern.
And then there are baby's who can crawl on their back.
Wow!!
1 1/2 week later
As you can see, my time is running out,
so more about crawling in part 2,
hopefully coming soon in this global theatre!