University of Manitoba
U NIVERSITY OF M ANITOBA | Department of Psychology

Developmental Psychology
Warren O. Eaton

Warren Eaton

Developmental Psychology Research

 
Developmental Milestones
Developmental Trajectories
Physical Maturation
Motor Activity Level
Activity Gender Differences and Stereotypes
Favored Developmental Research Methods
Developmental Psychology Research and Presentations
Graduate Study Research

Developmental Psychology Courses

Graduate School in Developmental Psychology

University of Manitoba, Canada
Contact Warren Eaton Contact Warren Eaton

Infant Development Milestone Study

Infant Development Milestone Study

Interested in research on Infant Development? Contact the Infant Development Milestone Study. We are looking for graduate students to work on our project.

Motor Activity Level

Differences among children's customary levels of motor activity are obvious to any observer. Using instruments that measure movement objectively we have developed a psychometrically sound approach to the measurement of activity level and have used that method to uncover some important findings.

Measuring Activity Level

  • Individual differences in customary movement are viewed as an important dimension of childhood temperament
  • Unlike other temperament dimensions, activity level can be measured with instruments, often called actometers or actigraphs.
  • Kids are shown being fitted with mechanical motion recorders on the arms and legs.
Motion Detector on Arm
Motion recorder
placed on arm
Motion Detector on Leg
Motion recorder placed on leg
  • Newer motion recorders are electronic and store information about accelerations on a continuous basis (e.g., actical Ambulatory Monitoring actigraph, MTI actigraph )
  • A critical feature of our approach is collect activity information across multiple occasions or hours (24 or 48), which markedly improves reliability (Eaton, 1983).

Some Key Findings

  • Boys are, on average, more active than girls (Eaton & Keats, 1982; Eaton & Enns, 1986), a difference which begins to appear in infancy (Campbell & Eaton, 1999).
  • The typical boy differs little from the typical girl on activity level, but the most and least active children in a groups are likely to be a boy and a girl, respectively (Eaton, 1989).
  • Individual differences in activity level are evident in fetal life (Eaton & Saudino, 1992).
  • The presence of peers stimulates higher levels of activity (Eaton & Keats, 1982).
  • Individual differences in activity have a genetic component in infancy (Saudino & Eaton, 1991) and early childhood (Saudino & Eaton, 1995).
  • Activity peaks in the middle school years, later than most would assume (Eaton, McKeen, and Campbell, 2001).

More about Developmental Trajectories.

 

Baby Squatting
Baby Squatting

Deferred Imitation
Deferred Imitation

 

 

Warren Eaton | Developmental Psychology Research | Developmental Psychology Research and Presentations | Graduate Study Research
Developmental Psychology Courses | Graduate School in Developmental Psychology | University of Manitoba, Canada | Contact Warren Eaton

Developmental Milestones | Developmental Trajectories | Physical Maturation | Motor Activity Level
Activity Gender Differences and Stereotypes | Favored Developmental Research Methods

 

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