Previous research has suggested that infant motor skills may be affected by older siblings but has not considered whether this is due to specific characteristics of the older sibling or of the quality of the sibling relationship. The current study used a longitudinal diary method to record infant motor milestones from 23 infants with older siblings along with parent reports and standardized assessments of motor skills. Parent reports of the older siblings' motor skills and the sibling relationship were also collected until the infants were 18months old. The motor skills, age, and sex of the older siblings were not significantly related to any measure of infant motor development. A significant correlation was revealed between perceived agonism between siblings and infant fine motor skills at 18months, suggesting the importance of considering reciprocal effects of motor development on sibling relationships. Overall, the suggestion that older siblings may provide a good model of motor skills for infants is not supported by the current data. In the future, it will be important to assess the dynamic interactions between different factors in predicting infant motor development, allowing early identification of motor difficulties, which could affect other areas of cognitive development and health.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 28 April 2026.
All research outputs
#20,457,756
of 32,734,737 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
#1,116
of 1,999 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#185,599
of 324,904 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
#9
of 27 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,734,737 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 37th percentile – i.e., 37% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,999 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.7. This one is in the 42nd percentile – i.e., 42% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 27 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its contemporaries.
