Effects of Backpack Carriage on Dual-Task Performance in Children During Standing and Walking

ABSTRACT

Primary school children perform parts of their everyday activities while carrying school supplies and being involved in attention-demanding situations. Twenty-eight children (8–10 years old) performed a 1-legged stance and a 10 m walking test under single- and dual-task situations in unloaded (i.e., no backpack) and loaded conditions (i.e., backpack with 20% of body mass). Results showed that load carriage did not significantly influence children's standing and walking performance (all p > .05), while divided attention affected all proxies of walking (all p < .001). Last, no significant load by attention interactions was detected. The single application of attentional but not load demand negatively affects children's walking performance. A combined application of both did not further deteriorate their gait behavior.

Keywords:

• attentional demand
• cognitive performance
• gait analysis
• load carriage
• postural control

NOTE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank Ms. Trägenapp (principal at elementary school “Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué” in Nennhausen, Germany) and Ms. Hummel (teacher at elementary school “Rosa-Luxemburg” in Potsdam, Germany) for their help and assistance with subject recruitment. All authors have made substantial contributions to the manuscript as followed: (a) the conception and design of the study (RB, TM; UG), acquisition of data (RB, LG), analysis and interpretation of data (RB, RK, UG), (b) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content (RB, TM, LG, UG), and (c) final approval of the version to be submitted (RB, TM, LG, RK, UG).

Notes

1. Cohen's d is a measure describing the effectiveness of a treatment and determines whether a difference is of practical concern. Cohen's d values are classified as the following: 0.00 ≤ d ≤ 0.49 indicates small, 0.50 ≤ d ≤ 0.79 indicates medium, and d ≥ 0.8 indicates large effect (Cohen, 1988).