A comparison of young children’s spatiotemporal gait measures in three common types of footwear with different sole hardness

•Few differences were observed in gait variables between soft and hard soled footwear.•Shorter stride length was observed in hard versus soft soled sandals.•Finding limited differences may be of interest for footwear designers and manufacturers. It is unknown what the impact of sole hardness is on young children’s gait. Yet, this feature is commonly marketed as having differing benefits for young children’s walking and development. What are the differences in spatiotemporal measures of gait during walking and running in three common types of young children’s footwear with a soft sole, compared to a hard sole? The study used a quasi-experimental design, with the condition order randomised using a Latin square sequence. Forty-seven children were recruited (aged 2–4 years). Participants walked or ran the length of a GAITRite mat in a randomized order in a soft (Shore 48–53) or hard soled (Shore 60–65) sneaker, boot and sandal condition. Linear regression analyses were used to investigate the difference between footwear for the different gait parameters including velocity, cadence, step time, swing percentage, stance percentage, double support time and the toe in/out angle. Children walked with a shorter stride length in the hard-soled sandals compared to the soft- soled sandals (p < 0.05). There were no other differences in spatiotemporal variables in the soft versus hard soled sandals during walking or running (p > 0.05). There were no differences in any spatiotemporal gait variables during walking or running in soft versus hard- soled runners and no differences in walking or running in soft versus hard-soled boots (p > 0.05). There were few differences in spatiotemporal parameters between soft and hard-soled footwear in both walking and running in three different types of footwear. This may be a positive finding for footwear designers and manufacturers, as a harder sole appeared to have limited impact on spatiotemporal gait parameters.