Pierson T, Chandler L, Leeds A, Flesuras A, Hall J; University of Puget Sound Physical Therapy, Tacoma, WA, U.S.A. aleeds@ups.edu.

PURPOSE: Climbing activities have become a growing pastime all around the world. This can be seen by the number of schools and athletic clubs that are building climbing walls in their facilities. Climbing promotes many benefits that include challenging coordination, balance, physical stamina, and motor planning. Considering the benefits to this activity, climbing walls could be used as a treatment tool by physical therapists to address range of motion, strength, motor control, balance, endurance, motor planning, confidence, and joint stability. The purpose of this study was to describe how typically developing children perform wall climbing. SUBJECTS: Participants included a convenience sample of eight typically developing children, ranging from six to ten years of age, with a mean age of eight. METHODS: Children were invited to participate in three ten minute sessions of wall climbing. They were secured by a harness and overhead belaying rope, fastened to a qualified belayer on the ground. The children were instructed to climb in any way they wanted within a 16 by 12 foot area, but limited to ten minutes per session. These sessions were video-taped for analysis. ANALYSIS: Statistics were performed using Excel. Pearson correlations and averages were calculated for each child at each session and across trials. RESULTS: Seven of eight children increased climbing time across trials. Receiving no instruction, fifty percent developed more sophisticated (fewer points of contact) climbing techniques across trials. The total number of footholds and handholds used throughout the duration of the session increased for six of the eight children. Average climbing height and horizontal distance were not correlated with age. CONCLUSION: Special emphasis for this study was placed on describing movement patterns, climbing duration, horizontal and vertical distance climbed, and difficulty of techniques used in climbing by children six to ten years of age. Children, provided with the opportunity to use a climbing wall without instruction increased level of sophistication across three ten minute trials. Overall, children climbed for increasing amounts of time across trials. In this small sample, younger participants often covered the same area as older participants. Considering the possible therapeutic benefits of climbing walls, a normative study with a larger sample size should be considered. FUNDING SOURCES: None.

Copyright 2004 by the American Physical Therapy Association

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