Compared the spontaneous leg movements of 10 infants with Down Syndrome to those of nondisabled infants matched for chronological age and motor age. Contrary to expectations, no significant difference was found in the frequency of leg movements between the two groups. However, Down Syndrome subjects demonstrated significantly fewer of the most…

Background: Empirical research suggests that social disadvantage has a negative effect on the development of language, and related cognitive skills such as reading. There is, however, no corresponding body of research on the impact of social disadvantage on motor development. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of…

This analysis involved the ten events of the men's decathlon in all performances which scored 8,000 points or higher, based on the 1962 Scoring Tables of the International Amateur Athletic Federation. It attempted to (1) determine the interrelationships among the events and the final scores, (2) look for areas of difference compared to sub-8,000…

Neurochemical and psychological effects of fenfluramine were examined on 20 autistic children (aged 1-10) over a 48-week period. A decrease in abnormal motor behavior was found, but no improvement in intellectual functioning. Serotonin decreased 53 percent after fenfluramine treatment and rebounded to levels 35 percent higher than baseline…

This study found that 5 7-year-old and 4 10-year-old prelingually hearing-impaired children displayed evidence of anticipatory coarticulation based on temporal and spectral cues, but they did so to a lesser degree than normally hearing children. (Author/JDD)

In this study we examined early motor, vocal, and communicative development in a group of younger siblings of children diagnosed with autism (Infant Siblings). Infant Siblings and no-risk comparison later-born infants were videotaped at home with a primary caregiver each month from 5 to 14 months, with follow-up at 18 months. As a group, Infant…

Motor skills were compared in two samples of children born biologically at risk: 19 children who had transient neurologic signs in infancy but were considered "normal" at two years, and 42 children who appeared neurologically normal throughout early childhood. At 4:6 years, the groups differed only on the measure of pencil prehension.…

A comparison was made of the performance of 30 learning-disabled students on the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test and the Beery Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration. A significant correlation of -.72 was obtained. No significant difference was found in estimations of age equivalents. (Author)

This study describes and compares visual encoding processes and copying performance of normal children and children with perceptual and neurological disabilities viewing the Bender-Gestalt designs. Designs of the neurologically impaired children were significantly different from those of either of the other two diagnostic groups. (Author)

Measures of both temporal and spectral parameters were computed to determine the extent of perseveratory coarticulation in the vowel-consonant syllables produced by 7- and 10-year-old children (n=9). Profoundly hearing-impaired speakers exhibited measurable but smaller effects of perseveratory coarticulation relative to the normally hearing…

Four experiments investigated the development of visuomotor control in sequential pointing in tasks varying in difficulty among 6- to 10-year-olds and adults. Comparisons across difficulty levels and ages suggest that motor development is not a uniform fine-tuning of stable strategies. Findings raise argument for stage characteristics of…

The early cognitive development and motor development of male preschool children with an alcoholic father were compared with matched control subjects from non-alcoholic families who resided in the same neighborhoods. Families were participants in the Michigan State University Longitudinal Study, into which were recruited all drunk drivers…