A comparison of motor imagery performance in children with spastic hemiplegia and developmental coordination disorder.
Individuals with hemiplegia have difficulty planning movements, which may stem from deficits in motor imagery ability. We explored motor imagery ability in three groups of 21 children, aged 8-12 years: children with hemiplegia; children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD); and a comparison group. They completed two tasks requiring laterality judgments of body parts--hand and whole-body rotation. Accuracy in both was reduced for the motor-impaired groups, and response time was atypical for the whole-body task. This suggests that motor imagery deficits exist in children with hemiplegia and DCD, supporting previous findings that planning deficits in hemiplegia may result from deficits in motor imagery.
Institute of Sport, Exercise and Active Living, and School of Sport and Exercise Science, Victoria University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. jacqueline.williams@vu.edu.au
Jacqueline
J
Williams
Vicki
V
Anderson
Dinah S
DS
Reddihough
Susan M
SM
Reid
Nandita
N
Vijayakumar
Peter H
PH
Wilson
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006225:Hand / Q000503:physiopathology; D006429:Hemiplegia / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D019957:Motor Skills Disorders / Q000150:complications*; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012399:Rotation