Our aim in this study was to compare hand skills, visual-motor integration skills, and participation in daily living activities of children with and without Type 1 diabetes (T1DM). In this ...prospective cross-sectional study, we included 44 children with T1DM (17 males, 27 females; aged 8-12 years) and a control group of 45 healthy age-matched children without T1DM (22 males, 23 females). We compared group scores on the Jebsen-Taylor Hand Function Test (JTHFT), the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Visual Motor Integration Test (Beery VMI), and the Participation and Environment Measure - Children and Youth (PEM-CY). JTHFT and Beery VMI scores of children with T1DM were significantly lower than those of the control group (p ≤ 0.005). On the PEM-CY, children with T1DM were found to have more participation barriers in the community than controls. Relative deficits in hand skills and visual motor integration of children with T1DM should be managed with greater attention and assistance.
•Children with autism have difficulty with skilled movements (dyspraxia).•These children also have deficits in basic motor skills including eye movements.•Those with poor motor timing have the ...greatest motor and praxis deficits.•Deficits in motor skill and visual–motor integration contribute to dyspraxia.
This project assessed dyspraxia in high-functioning school aged children with autism with a focus on Ideational Praxis. We examined the association of specific underlying motor function including eye movement with ideational dyspraxia (sequences of skilled movements) as well as the possible role of visual–motor integration in dyspraxia. We found that compared to IQ-, sex- and age-matched typically developing children, the children with autism performed significantly worse on: Ideational and Buccofacial praxis; a broad range of motor tests, including measures of simple motor skill, timing and accuracy of saccadic eye movements and motor coordination; and tests of visual–motor integration. Impairments in individual children with autism were heterogeneous in nature, although when we examined the praxis data as a function of a qualitative measure representing motor timing, we found that children with poor motor timing performed worse on all praxis categories and had slower and less accurate eye movements while those with regular timing performed as well as typical children on those same tasks. Our data provide evidence that both motor function and visual–motor integration contribute to dyspraxia. We suggest that dyspraxia in autism involves cerebellar mechanisms of movement control and the integration of these mechanisms with cortical networks implicated in praxis.
Aim
To assess visual‐motor integration in young adults previously included in a prospective study on the incidence of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP).
Methods
The study encompassed 59 preterm ...individuals, born 1988‐1990, with a birth weight ≤1500 g, and 44 full‐term controls, aged 25‐29 years. Ophthalmological examination, including visual acuity and contrast sensitivity, and the Beery Visual‐Motor Integration (VMI) with supplemental tests of visual perception and motor coordination, were performed. A short questionnaire was filled in.
Results
The preterm individuals had significantly lower scores than the controls in all VMI tests, median values and interquartile ranges: Beery VMI 87 (21) vs 103 (11), visual perception 97 (15) vs 101 (8) and motor coordination 97 (21) vs 102 (15), respectively. Within the preterm group, no correlations were found between the VMI tests and ROP, gestational age, birth weight or visual acuity. Contrast sensitivity was correlated to visual perception. Neurological complication at 2.5 years was a risk factor for lower scores on Beery VMI. The preterm subjects reported six times as many health problems as compared to the controls.
Conclusion
Being born preterm seemed to have life‐long effects. This study shows that visual‐motor integration was affected in young adults born preterm.
Abstract Background Imitation, which is impaired in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and critically depends on the integration of visual input with motor output, likely impacts both motor ...and social skill acquisition in children with ASD; however, it is unclear what brain mechanisms contribute to this impairment. Children with ASD also exhibit what appears to be an ASD-specific bias against using visual feedback during motor learning. Does the temporal congruity of intrinsic activity, or functional connectivity, between motor and visual brain regions contribute to ASD-associated deficits in imitation, motor, and social skills? Methods We acquired resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans from 100 8- to 12-year-old children (50 ASD). Group independent component analysis was used to estimate functional connectivity between visual and motor systems. Brain-behavior relationships were assessed by regressing functional connectivity measures with social deficit severity, imitation, and gesture performance scores. Results We observed increased intrinsic asynchrony between visual and motor systems in children with ASD and replicated this finding in an independent sample from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange. Moreover, children with more out-of-sync intrinsic visual-motor activity displayed more severe autistic traits, while children with greater intrinsic visual-motor synchrony were better imitators. Conclusions Our twice replicated findings confirm that visual-motor functional connectivity is disrupted in ASD. Furthermore, the observed temporal incongruity between visual and motor systems, which may reflect diminished integration of visual consequences with motor output, was predictive of the severity of social deficits and may contribute to impaired social-communicative skill development in children with ASD.
Despite the importance of handwriting for school readiness and early academic progress, prior research on the development of handwriting has focused primarily on the product rather than the process ...by which young children write letters. In contrast, in the present work, early handwriting is viewed as involving a suite of perceptual, motor, and cognitive abilities, which must work in unison if children are to write letters efficiently. To study such coordination, head-mounted eye-tracking technology was used to investigate the process of visual-motor coordination while kindergarten children (N = 23) and adults (N = 11) copied individual letters and strings of letters that differed in terms of their phonemic properties. Results indicated that kindergarten children were able to copy single letters efficiently, as did adults. When the cognitive demands of the task increased and children were presented with strings of letters, however, their ability to copy letters efficiently was compromised: Children frequently interrupted their writing midletter, whereas they did not do so on single letter trials. Yet, with increasing age, children became more efficient in copying letter strings, in part by using vision more prospectively when writing. Taken together, the results illustrate how the coordination of perceptual, motor, and cognitive processes contributes to advances in the development of letter writing skill.
•Stability in mathematics, executive function, and visual-motor integration development.•Strong associations between stable effects in co-development.•Bidirectional relations between executive ...function and mathematics into first grade.•Visual-motor integration predicted mathematics and executive function in prekindergarten.
Correlational and short-term longitudinal studies both demonstrate significant associations between children’s executive function skills and visual-motor integration and their mathematics achievement in early childhood. Our current understanding of the development of these skills in early childhood is limited, however, by a lack of clarity concerning whether the associations between them are causal in nature or could be explained by other unmeasured stable characteristics shared among the constructs. Using a latent state-trait approach, we examined the development of executive function skills, visual-motor integration, and children’s mathematics achievement from the beginning of prekindergarten to the end of first grade (N = 1138). Findings of stability and instability in relative rankings in children’s skills across four time points suggest that children’s growth in mathematics skills is a product of both persistent unmeasured stable influences and time-specific effects of prior executive function skills and visual-motor integration. Specifically, visual-motor integration related to subsequent mathematics achievement and executive function skills in prekindergarten, and executive function and mathematics achievement were bidirectionally related through first grade, even when accounting for stability in each construct. These results suggest that future experimental research should consider executive function skills and visual-motor integration as well as specific mathematics skills as potential targets for early mathematics instruction.
Introduction
Screen‐time has become a regular occupation for young children at home and school, with little evidence of its impact on children's developmental skills. This study explored the ...association between children's screen‐time, fine motor, in‐hand manipulation (IHM), visual‐motor integration (VMI), sensory processing (SP) and parent‐reported play skills.
Method
The fine motor, IHM, VMI, SP and play skills of a sample of 25 Australian children without disabilities (M age = 6.2 years, SD = 1.03; 64% girls) were assessed using the Bruininks–Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency—Second Edition, Test of In‐Hand Manipulation—Revised, Berry Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual‐Motor Integration Sixth Edition, Sensory Processing Measure—Home Form and Pretend Play Enjoyment Developmental Checklist (PPEDC). Parents completed a week‐long log of their child's screen‐time. Spearman's rho correlations and linear regressions with bootstrapping were used for data analysis.
Results
Statistically significant moderate level negative correlations were found between Total Screen‐Time (TST) and VMI skills (r = −.67, p < .01); Interactive Screen‐Time and IHM abilities (r = −.46, p < .05) and TST and bilateral coordination skills (r = −.42, p < .05). There were significant negative correlations between SP ability and both TST (r = −.53, p < .01) and Watching Screen‐Time (r = −.66, p < .01). When the PPEDC Object Substitution variable was entered into a regression model as a co‐variate of hand function, it appeared to lessen the impact of TST as an independent predictor variable of children's VMI and bilateral coordination skills (p < .23 and p < .61).
Conclusion
Playing with toys and using object substitution in play (e.g. a child uses an object for something else other than its intended use when playing with it) potentially appear to be a moderating factor of the impact of children's screen‐time on their bilateral coordination and VMI skills. Clinicians can encourage children's active and dynamic involvement in games and play pursuits to counteract the potential impact of increased use of devices that involve screen‐time.
Aim
This study aimed to explain the relationship between visual‐motor integration (VMI) abilities and extremely preterm (EPT) birth, by exploring the influence of perinatal variables, cognition, ...manual dexterity and ophthalmological outcomes.
Methods
This was part of the population‐based national Extremely Preterm Infant Study in Sweden (EXPRESS) study. We studied 355 children, born at a gestational age of <27 weeks from April 2004 to March 2007, and 364 term‐born controls. At six‐and‐a‐half years of age, we assessed VMI, cognitive function, motor skills and vision. VMI impairment was classified as <−1 standard deviation (SD).
Results
The mean (SD) VMI score was 87 (±12) in preterm children compared to 98 (±11) in controls (p < 0.001). VMI impairment was present in 55% of preterm infants and in 78% of children born at 22–23 weeks. Male sex and postnatal steroids showed a weak association with poorer visual‐motor performance, whereas low manual dexterity and cognitive function showed a stronger association.
Conclusion
Poor VMI performance was common in this EXPRESS cohort of children born EPT. Its strong association to cognition and manual dexterity confirms that all of these factors need to be taken into account when evaluating risks in preterm born children.
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