title: Deficit in implicit motor sequence learning among children and adolescents with spastic cerebral palsy.
abstract: Skill learning (SL) is learning as a result of repeated exposure and practice, which encompasses independent explicit (response to instructions) and implicit (response to hidden regularities) processes. Little is known about the effects of developmental disorders, such as Cerebral Palsy (CP), on the ability to acquire new skills. We compared performance of CP and typically developing (TD) children and adolescents in completing the serial reaction time (SRT) task, which is a motor sequence learning task, and examined the impact of various factors on this performance as indicative of the ability to acquire motor skills. While both groups improved in performance, participants with CP were significantly slower than TD controls and did not learn the implicit sequence. Our results indicate that SL in children and adolescents with CP is qualitatively and quantitatively different than that of their peers. Understanding the unique aspects of SL in children and adolescents with CP might help plan appropriate and efficient interventions.
authors.affiliation: The Department of Psychology, Bar Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel. Electronic address: mgoferlevi@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Moran
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gofer-Levi
authors.forename: Tamar
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Silberg
authors.forename: Amichai
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Brezner
authors.forename: Eli
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vakil
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002547:Cerebral Palsy / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology; D019957:Motor Skills Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D012691:Serial Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Cerebral Palsy (CP); Sequence learning; Serial reaction time (SRT) task; Skill learning (SL)