Aim: To determine the distribution of cognitive and motor scores in preterm children, and to establish the influence of brain lesions and decreasing gestational age thereon. Method: One hundred and six very preterm children (63 males, 43 females; gestational age 24.0-31.6wk; birthweight 480-2275g) were assessed for cognition and motor outcome at 6…

Most chronic stroke patients present with difficulty in the manipulation of objects. The aim of this study was to test whether an intensive program of precision grip training could improve hand functioning of patients at more than 6 months after a stroke. This was a cross-over study; hence, at inclusion, the patients were randomly divided into two…

This study examines the effects of long-term training program on balance and center of pressure (COP) for four male children (13 years of age) with cerebral palsy (CP). These children were classified into one hemiplegic (level II), one diplegic (level II) and two quadriplegic children (levels III and II) using the Gross Motor Function…

The purpose of this study was to address the hypothesis that childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is influenced by an underlying deficit in sequential processing that is also expressed in other modalities. In a sample of 21 adults from five multigenerational families, 11 with histories of various familial speech sound disorders, 3 biologically…

The vestibulo-ocular response (VOR) may not be fully developed in children with an intellectual and developmental disability (IDD). This study aimed to identify the presence of VOR deficit in children and young adults with unspecified mild-to-moderate intellectual and developmental disability and its effect on balance control. Twenty-one children…

Purpose: Advances in neurobiology are providing new opportunities to investigate the neurological systems underlying motor speech control. This study explores the perceptual characteristics of the speech of three genotypes of spino-cerebellar ataxia (SCA) as manifest in four different speech tasks. Methods: Speech samples from 26 speakers with SCA…

The Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS) is commonly used in clinical practice for grading spasticity. However, it was modified recently by omitting grade "1+" of the MAS and redefining grade "2". The aim of this study was to investigate the inter-rater reliability of MAS and modified MAS (MMAS) for the assessment of poststroke elbow flexor spasticity.…

Emerging findings from studies with infants at familial high risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), owing to an older sibling with a diagnosis, suggest that those who go on to develop ASD show early impairments in the processing of stimuli with both social and non-social content. Although ASD is defined by social-communication impairments and…

There is now a growing body of research examining movement difficulties in children diagnosed with high functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger's disorder (AD). Despite this, few studies have investigated the kinematic components of movement that may be disrupted in children diagnosed with these disorders. The current study investigated rapid aiming…

Impaired tool related action in ideomotor apraxia is normally ascribed to loss of sensorimotor memories for habitual actions (engrams), but this account has not been tested against a hypothesis of a general deficit in representation of hand-object spatial relationships. Rapid reaching for familiar tools was compared with reaching for abstract…

In addition to motor execution problems, children with hemiplegia have motor planning deficits, which may stem from poor motor imagery ability. This study aimed to provide a greater understanding of motor imagery ability in children with hemiplegia using the hand rotation task. Three groups of children, aged 8-12 years, participated: right…

Motor sequence learning has been studied extensively in Developmental dyslexia (DD). The purpose of the present research was to examine procedural learning of letter names and motor sequences in individuals with DD and control groups. Both groups completed the Serial Search Task which enabled the assessment of learning of letter names and motor…

Background: Temporal information processing (TIP) underlies many aspects of cognitive functions like language, motor control, learning, memory, attention, etc. Millisecond timing may be assessed by sequencing abilities, e.g. the perception of event order. It may be measured with auditory temporal-order-threshold (TOT), i.e. a minimum time gap…

Aim: Dystonia in childhood has many causes. Imaging may suggest corticospinal tract dysfunction with or without coexistent basal ganglia damage. There are very few published neurophysiological studies on children with dystonia; one previous study has focused on primary dystonia. We investigated central motor conduction in 62 children (34 males, 28…

Kinematic recordings in a reach and drop task were compared between 12 preschool children with autism without mental retardation and 12 gender and age-matched normally developing children. Our aim was to investigate whether motor anomalies in autism may depend more on a planning ability dysfunction or on a motor control deficit. Planning and…