How Do Immature Perceptual-Motor Skills Put Child Cyclists at Risk for Injury?

减少意外伤害是2010年健康人倡议的十大优先事项之一。损伤 预防显然在儿童健康中起着不可或缺的作用，因为意外伤害是儿童死亡的主要原因。 儿童和年轻人的死亡。自行车撞车是造成严重伤害的最常见原因之一 在童年晚期和青春期早期。机动车约占所有自行车的三分之一， 与脑损伤有关，90%的死亡是由自行车撞车造成的。的关键第一步 制定防止儿童骑自行车者与机动车相撞的计划， 发生这种冲突。这项多学科研究提案的目标是研究 感知运动功能使儿童在过马路时面临汽车与自行车相撞的风险。使用 沉浸式，互动自行车模拟器，我们将研究如何感知运动的两个重要方面 发展影响过马路行为。第一个是协调运动和视觉 信息.我们对儿童过马路行为的研究有一个强有力的发现， 与成年人一样大的空隙，但当他们开始穿越时，留下的进展较小。因此，儿童自行车运动员 当他们为迎面而来的汽车扫清道路时，剩下的时间要少得多。这使得儿童骑自行车在 碰撞的风险更大，因为他们有更少的时间从错误中恢复过来， 从踏板上滑下来我们将讨论的感知运动发展的第二个方面是灵活性 使运动适应不断变化的环境。熟练的过马路要求骑自行车的人迅速调整， 如间隙尺寸分布的变化。第一组拟议的实验将测试假设 为什么孩子们在起步时比成年人落后。1）不成熟 运动准备策略，2）做出“去-不去”决定的问题，以及3） 同步自我和物体运动。第二组实验将考察儿童如何适应 他们对环境变化的反应以及这些经历如何影响他们的过马路行为 后来的过马路行为。通过将基础和应用问题的研究整合到一个单一的程序中， 这项工作将有助于我们理解知觉运动的发展， 功能和我们对儿童骑自行车受伤的根本原因的理解。'

Reducing unintentional injuries is one of the top ten priorities of the Healthy People 2010 initiative. Injury prevention clearly plays an integral role in children's health, as unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death in children and young adults. Bicycle crashes are among the most common causes of severe injuries in late childhood and early adolescence. Motor vehicles are involved in approximately one-third of all bicycle- related brain injuries and in 90% of all fatalities resulting from bicycle crashes. A critical first step in developing programs to prevent collisions between child cyclists and motor vehicles is understanding why such collisions occur. The goal of this multi-disciplinary research proposal is to examine how immature perceptual-motor functioning puts children at risk for car-bicycle collisions when crossing roads. Using an immersive, interactive bicycling simulator, we will examine how two important aspects of perceptual-motor development influence road-crossing behavior. The first is coordinating motor movement with visual information. A robust finding from our research on children's road-crossing behavior is that children choose the same size gaps as adults, but leave less headway when they start to cross. Consequently, child cyclists end up with far less time to spare when they clear the path of the oncoming car. This puts child cyclists at greater risk for a collision because they have less time available to recover from an error such as a foot slipping off the pedal. The second aspect of perceptual-motor development we will address is flexibly adapting movement to changing circumstances. Skilled road crossing requires that cyclists adjust quickly to changes such as the distribution of gap sizes. The first set of proposed experiments will test hypotheses about why children leave less headway when starting off than do adults. These include 1) immature movement preparation strategies, 2) problems with making "go-no go" decisions, and 3) difficulty with synchronizing self and object movement. The second set of experiments will examine how children adjust their road-crossing behavior in response to changing circumstances and how these experiences influence later road-crossing behavior. By bringing together the study of basic and applied issues into a single program of research, this work will contribute both to our understanding of the development of perceptual-motor functioning and to our understanding of the underlying causes of child bicycling injuries. '