Purpose:
The aim of the study was to describe the gait kinematic behaviour of healthy Brazilian children aged 6-11 years old and examine the influence of age and gender on the analysed kinematic characteristics.

Methods:
A descriptive study that investigated the gait of 119 children (60 boys and 59 girls) aged 6-11 years was conducted. Data were stratified according to age (6-7 years, 8-9 years, 10-11 years) and gender and its impact over spatiotemporal gait parameters was assessed. An inexpensive yet satisfactorily valid and objective motion capture system was employed to compute gait parameters.

Results:
Non-normalised and normalised averages of stride length, step length, cadence and velocity from 119 participants were 1.23 ± 0.17 m and 1.8 ± 0.2, 0.63 ± 0.11 m and 0.9 ± 0.1 m, 117.9 ± 11.4 steps/min and 311.9 ± 23.9 steps/min, 72.5 ± 11.1 m/min and 27.9 ± 4.5 m/min, respectively. Stance and swing means (%GC) were 58.1% ± 3.3% and 41.9% ± 3.3%, respectively. Step and stride length increased with advancing age, while cadence decreased. A significant difference (p = 0.005) was found between Group 2 (8-9 years) and 3 (10-11 years) for normalised velocity. No significant differences between groups were found for other non-dimensional variables. Comparisons between boys and girls showed no differences (p > 0.05) in any spatiotemporal gait parameters.

Conclusions:
The gait kinematic behaviour of 119 Brazilian children was described using a low-cost instrumented gait analysis system. Gender was not a significant modifying factor for gait among the examined children. Our findings suggest a partially immature gait kinematic pattern in children aged between 6 to 11 years. Additional studies are needed to examine whether the differences between our results and those reported in the literature are due to issues of internal or external validity.