The purpose of this study was to investigate postural control and the importance of visual information in gymnastics and non-gymnastics children. Forty-three female children, 23 gymnastics and 20 non-gymnastics, age 5 to 7 and 9 to 11 years, stood upright on a force platform in bipodal, semi-tandem, and reduced bases, with and without vision. The area of center of pressure oscillation and the visual contribution index were calculated. The results indicated that practice of gymnastic improves postural control in younger children. Finally, gymnastic children use more properly visual information than non-gymnastic children in order to maintain the upright stance more steadily.
Human development; posture; training; sensory information
