Condon, C., & Cremin, K. (2014). Static balance norms in children. Physiotherapy Research International : The Journal for Researchers and Clinicians in Physical Therapy, 19(1), 1–7. doi:10.1002/pri.1549

Email for copies of the article:  cillin.condon@tcd.ie

The objectives of this study were to report the range of normal performance across six balance tests in children aged 4 to 15 years and to provide normative temporal percentile results. Secondary objectives were to examine relationships between height, gender, weight and lower limb muscle power to balance performance.

Participants were recruited from 11 primary and post-primary schools around the Republic of Ireland. Five hundred thirty four participants (4–15 years old) were recruited

The authors present their results  in  3 figures giving the  interquartile range for the three single leg stance tests thin each age group.

Figure 1. Single leg balance on stable surface, eyes open

Figure 2. Single leg balance on stable surface, eyes closed

Figure 3. Single leg balance on unstable/foam surface, eyes open

Extracts from the discussion

1. The results provide clinicians with comparative data for more informed decision making and enable clinicians to compare the ability of children at defined ages.
    
2. The interquartile range in the box plots represents 50% of the test population and is an illustration of the range of abilities within each age category. This is more clinically relevant than reporting means or medians for this type of data.
    
3. As expected, static balance times improved with age, across all tests and are in agreement with other studies (Franjoine et al., 2010, Mickle et al.,2011).
    
4. There was a distinct change in abilities after the age of 7 years, for example, very few 6 to 7-year-olds achieved 120 s SLS-EO compared with older age groups.
    
5. From the data, it is apparent that children from the age of 10 onwards can easily accomplish the static balance tasks, that is, achieve at least 30 s in both TS and SLS-EO.
    
6. As expected, the findings of this study indicate that overall static balance is sustained longer with eyes open than eyes closed. This difference becomes more apparent with increasing chronological age. This supports the consensus that children have reached adult-like patterns of balance by the age of 10, particularly in relation to the use of visual information (Nolan et al., 2005, Humphriss et al., 2011). 

References 

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