The function of self-touchings, posture shifts, and motor discharges in children from 3 to 6 years of age.

The function of self-touchings, posture shifts, and discharges was studied by comparing videotapes of 48 normal children aged 3 to 6 yr. performing on two tasks, watching cartoons and telling about these cartoons. We scored the occurrence of self-touchings, posture shifts and discharges by 5-sec. intervals on both tasks. We could not find developmental changes between 3 and 6 yr. of age, but significant differences in the numbers of movements between watching and telling appeared. Children moved much more during telling than during watching cartoons. This was interpreted as a reflection of task-specific attention in watching and telling. The attention-regulating function of the behavior was further shown by an outburst of movements during the first 10 sec. after the start of watching each cartoon. Self-touchings, posture shifts, and discharges seem to be part of the 'orienting reflex'.