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Infant motor development and cognitive performance in early old age: the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study

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Abstract

Motor development and cognitive development in childhood have been found to be fundamentally interrelated, but less is known about the association extending over the life course. The aim of this study was to examine the association between early motor development and cognitive performance in early old age. From men and women belonging to the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study, who were born between 1934 and 1944 and resided in Finland in 1971, 1279 participated in cognitive performance tests (CogState®, version 3.0.5) between 2001 and 2006 at an average age of 64.2 years (SD 3.0). Of these, age at first walking extracted from child welfare clinic records was available for 398 participants. Longer reaction times in cognitive tasks measuring simple reaction time (SRT), choice reaction time (CRT), working memory (WM), divided attention (DA), and associated learning (AL) indicated poorer cognitive performance. Adjustment was made for sex, age at testing, father’s occupational status and own highest attained education, and occupation in adulthood. Average age of learning to walk was 12.2 months (SD 2.1). After adjusting for covariates, earlier attainment of learning to walk was associated with shorter reaction times in cognitive performance tasks (SRT 10.32 % per month, 95 % CI 0.48–21.12, p = 0.039; CRT 14.17 % per month, 95 % CI 3.75–25.63, p = 0.007; WM 15.14 % per month, 95 % CI 4.95–26.32, p = 0.003). People who learned to walk earlier had better cognitive performance in early old age. The earlier attainment of motor skills may track over to early old age and possibly reflect greater cognitive reserve in older age.

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Funding

HBCS was supported by Emil Aaltonen Foundation, Finnish Foundation for Diabetes Research, Novo Nordisk Foundation, Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation, Samfundet Folkhälsan, Finska Läkaresällskapet, Liv och Hälsa, and Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research. TP-C was supported by Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation and Folkhälsan. The Academy of Finland supported MBvB (grant no. 257239), TR (grant no. 255403), EK (grant no. 127437, 129306, 130326, 134791, and 2639249), and JGE (grant no. 129369, 129907, 135072, 129255, and 126775). The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Commission within the 7th Framework Programme (DORIAN, grant agreement no 278603).

Conflict of interest

No declared.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gerontology Research Center and Department of Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, PO Box 35, FI-40014, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Taina Poranen-Clark, Mikaela B. von Bonsdorff & Taina Rantanen

  2. Folkhälsan Research Centre, Biomedicum, University of Helsinki, PL 20, FI-00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Taina Poranen-Clark, Jari Lahti & Johan G. Eriksson

  3. Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, PO Box 9, FI-00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Jari Lahti & Katri Räikkönen

  4. MRC Life course Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

    Clive Osmond

  5. Department of Chronic Disease Prevention, National Institute for Health and Welfare, PL 30, 00271, Helsinki, Finland

    Eero Kajantie & Johan G. Eriksson

  6. Hospital for Children and Adolescents, Helsinki University Central Hospital and University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Eero Kajantie

  7. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, MRC Oulu, Oulu University Central Hospital and University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Eero Kajantie

  8. Unit of General Practice, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland

    Johan G. Eriksson

  9. Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Johan G. Eriksson

Authors
  1. Taina Poranen-Clark
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  2. Mikaela B. von Bonsdorff
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  3. Jari Lahti
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  4. Katri Räikkönen
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  5. Clive Osmond
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  6. Taina Rantanen
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  7. Eero Kajantie
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  8. Johan G. Eriksson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Taina Poranen-Clark.

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Poranen-Clark, T., von Bonsdorff, M.B., Lahti, J. et al. Infant motor development and cognitive performance in early old age: the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study. AGE 37, 44 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-015-9785-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-015-9785-x

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