Visual, Perceptual and Visuomotor Impairment in Physically Handicapped Children

Abstract

Children were examined for vision, motor handicap, neurological condition, and with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception, a shape matching test, and the Benton Right-left Discrimination Battery. Cerebral palsied children were compared with non-brain-damaged, motor-handicapped children (controls). Impairment of visuomotor performance was associated with spasticity and not with athetosis, and the incidence in spastics was very high. The impairments in perceptual and visuomotor tests shown by some cerebral palsied children were not shown by the controls. It was concluded that they are not due to limitation of spatial experience. Among diplegic and hemiplegic spastics, impairment in the WISC Performance subtests, Frostig, shape matching, and Benton tests, was not related to impairment in the somatic-sensory and perceptual tests. Achievement on the WISC Verbal Scale and the Benton test was not related to motor handicap or to the presence of strabismus. Scores in Block Design, Coding, Eye-motor Coordination, Form Constancy and Spatial Relations subtests tended to be correlated with both motor handicap and strabismus; Object Assembly with motor handicap; and Mazes and Figure-ground with strabismus.