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Feeding Behaviors and Other Motor Development in Healthy Children (2–24 Months)

Nutrition Department, College of Human Ecology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee

Address reprint requests to: Betty Ruth Carruth, PhD, RD, Nutrition Department, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-1900. E-mail: bcarruth{at}utk.edu

Objectives: To monitor infant’s gross, fine and oral motor development patterns related to feeding.

Design: An incomplete block design was used with 57 to 60 (sample=98) mothers interviewed when their children were 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16 and 24 months (within ± 5 days of birth date). Each mother had 5 to 6 interviews.

Setting: Selected developmental feeding behaviors were monitored using in-home interviews conducted by trained interviewers (n=2). At each interview, mothers reported the child’s age when behaviors first occurred, and anthropometric measurements were performed.

Subjects: Subjects were healthy white children who lived mostly in homes with educated two-parent families of upper socioeconomic status.

Results: Mean behavioral ages were within normal ranges reported in the literature, whereas individuals exhibited a wide diversity in reported ages. Examples of gross motor skills (age in months, ± SD) included sitting without help (5.50 ± 2.08) and crawling (8.00 ± 1.55). Mean ages for self-feeding fine motor skills showed children reaching for a spoon when hungry (5.47 ± 1.44), using fingers to rake food toward self (8.87 ± 2.58) and using fingers to self-feed soft foods (13.52 ± 2.83). Oral behaviors included children opening their mouth when food approached (4.46 ± 1.37), eating food with tiny lumps (8.70 ± 2.03) and chewing and swallowing firmer foods without choking (12.17 ± 2.28).

Conclusions: Mean ages for feeding behaviors occurred within expected age ranges associated with normal development. However, mothers reported that individual children exhibited a wide age range for achieving these behaviors. Our results should be considered in counseling mothers about infant feeding practices.

Key words: infant feeding behaviors, motor development, self-feeding