This is the first study to use strict criteria to define the prevalence of developmental coordination disorder in a representative cohort of UK children. A prevalence of 1.7% is lower than studies that have not taken into account the impact of poor motor coordination on daily living but indicates that poor coordination is an important, and often hidden, cause of disability in childhood.

SUMMARY The question of whether problems of motor co‐ordination in early childhood recede with age has rarely been addressed. This paper reports the findings from a follow‐up study of 17 children, identified by their teachers as having poor motor co‐ordination at age six. Now age 16, these children and their matched controls completed a battery of assessments. The results suggest that the majority of children still have difficulties with motor co‐ordination, have poor self‐concept and are experiencing problems of various kinds in school. However, there are individual differences in the extent to which the children have learned to cope with their continuing difficulties over the years. RÉSUMÉ Maladresse chez l'enfant: disparait‐elle? Etude de suivi durant dix ans La question de savoir si les problèmes de coordination de l'enfance régressent avec l'ǎge a été rarement posée. L'article rapporte les données d'une étude longitudinale de 17 enfants, chez qui les enseignants avaient détecté une coordination motrice médiocre à l'ǎge de six ans. Ces sujets ont étéévalués par une batterie, avec des contrǒles appariés, a l'ǎge de 16 ans. Les résultats suggèrent que la majorité des sujets présentaient encore des difficultés en rapport avec une mauvaise coordination motrice, avaient une mauvaise image de leurs capacités et avaient eu des problèmes variés à l'école. Il y avait cependant des différences individuelles dans I'aptitude à intégrer les difficultés au cours des annees. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Ungeschicklichkeit bei Kindern: wie stehen die Chancen für eine Normalisierung? Eine Verlaufstudie über 10 Jahre Es ist selten die Frage gestellt worden, ob Probleme der motorischen Koordination im frühen Kindesalter im Laufe der Jahre verschwinden. In dieser Arbeit werden die Ergebnisse einer Verlaufsstudie bei 17 Kindern dargestellt, die im Alter von sechs Jahren von ihren Lehrern eine schlechte Beurteilung ihrer motorischen Koordination bekommen hatten. Jetzt, im Alter von 16 Jahren, wurden diese Kinder, sowie ihre Kontrollen, einer Reihe von Untersuchungen unterzogen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, da8 die Mehrzahl der Kinder noch immer Schwierigkeiten bei der motorischen Koordination, sowie ein mangelhaftes Selbstwertgefühl und verschiedene Probleme in der Schule hat. Es gibt jeoch individuelle Unterschiede, wie die Kinder gelernt haben, ihre fortbestehenden Schwierigkeiten im Verlaufe der Jahre zu meistern. RESUMEN Torpeza en niños:? Ilegan con la edad a libererse de ella? Estudio a lo largo de diez años Sólo muy raramente se ha planteado la pregunta de si los problemas de coordinación Ilegan a desaparecer con la edad. Este trabajo expone los hallazgos obtenidos en un estudio continuado de 17 niños, identificados por sus maestros como teniendo una coordinacion pobre a la edad de seis años. Ahora, con 16 años estos niños y un grupo control sa ha completado una bateria de exámenes. Los resultados sugieren que la mayoria de niños tienen todavia dificultades en la coordinacion motora. Tienen un autoconcep...

Neonatal encephalopathy (NE) following perinatal asphyxia (PA) is considered an important cause of later neurodevelopmental impairment in infants born at term. This review discusses long-term consequences for general cognitive functioning, educational achievement, neuropsychological functioning and behavior. In all areas reviewed, the outcome of children with mild NE is consistently positive and the outcome of children with severe NE consistently negative. However, children with moderate NE form a more heterogeneous group with respect to outcome. On average, intelligence scores are below those of children with mild NE and age-matched peers, but within the normal range. With respect to educational achievement, difficulties have been found in the domains reading, spelling and arithmetic/mathematics. So far, studies of neuropsychological functioning have yielded ambiguous results in children with moderate NE. A few studies suggest elevated rates of hyperactivity in children with moderate NE and autism in children with moderate and severe NE. Conclusion: Behavioral monitoring is required for all children with NE. In addition, systematic, detailed neuropsychological examination is needed especially for children with moderate NE.

Results suggest that two different mechanisms underlie the quality of handwriting in children with and without handwriting problems. Poor quality of handwriting of children with HWP seems particularly related to a deficiency in visual-motor integration.

No abstract

BackgroundWith improved medical outcome in preterm infants, the psychosocial situation of their families is receiving increasing attention. For parents, the birth of a preterm infant is generally regarded as a stressful experience, and therefore many interventions are based on reducing parental stress. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether parents of children born preterm experience more stress than parents of term-born children, which would justify these interventions. This meta-analysis provides a comprehensive account of parental stress in parents of preterm infants, from birth of the infant through to their adolescence. Mean levels of stress in specific domains of family functioning were investigated, and stress levels in parents of preterm and term infants, and fathers and mothers of preterm infants, were compared. Furthermore, we investigated moderators of parental stress.Methods and FindingsA random-effects meta-analysis was conducted including 38 studies describing 3025 parents of preterm (<37 wk) and low birth weight (<2500 g) infants. Parental stress was measured with two parent-reported questionnaires, the Parenting Stress Index and the Parental Stressor Scale: Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The results indicate that parents of preterm-born children experience only slightly more stress than parents of term-born children, with small effect sizes. Furthermore, mothers have slightly more stress than fathers, but these effect sizes are also small. Parents report more stress for infants with lower gestational ages and lower birth weights. There is a strong effect for infant birth year, with decreasing parental stress from the 1980s onward, probably due to increased quality of care for preterm infants.ConclusionsBased on our findings we argue that prematurity can best be regarded as one of the possible complications of birth, and not as a source of stress in itself.

Outcome of full-term infants with neonatal encephalopathy of hypoxic-ischemic origin is often assessed in infancy or early childhood and data on outcome in childhood and adolescence is limited. MRI performed in the neonatal period has made a huge contribution to recognition of different patterns of injury. These different patterns of injury are related to the severity of later motor and cognitive disabilities.Long-term follow-up shows that cognitive and memory diffi culties may follow even in children without motor defi cits. It is therefore recommended to perform follow-up assessment into childhood in children with and without adverse neurological outcome in early infancy.Neonatal encephalopathy (NE) occurs in 1-6/1000 live full-term births and carries a high risk for subsequent neurodevelopmental disabilities. 1 Longterm outcome is known to depend on the severity of the neonatal condition. 2 3 The term NE is now more often used than perinatal asphyxia (PA). This is because PA is diffi cult to defi ne and in order to be reliable, needs access to several markers which are not always available, such as fetal heart rate tracings, umbilical cord gases and reliable Apgar scores. Individually, these markers have been shown to not correlate very well with subsequent outcome. 4 5 NE is 'a clinically defi ned syndrome of disturbed neurological function in the earliest days of life in the full-term infant, manifested by diffi culty with initiating and maintaining respiration, depression of tone and refl exes, subnormal level of consciousness and often seizures'. The widely used three-level grading system of mild, moderate and severe encephalopathy, based on clinical symptoms and EEG, was developed by Sarnat and Sarnat. 6 They based their encephalopathy score on an assessment in only 21 infants. The development of encephalopathy in full-term infants within hours to days after birth is now considered essential in order to be confi dent about an underlying perinatal insult, and NE is almost invariably associated with several of the markers mentioned above. 7 NE can develop for reasons other than hypoxic-ischaemia, for example, metabolic disorders, therefore a combination of markers suggestive of the presence of PA as well as the development of NE is obligatory.Most studies reported so far have focused on early neurodevelopmental outcome at 18-24 months, looking mainly at development of cerebral palsy (CP) or severe cognitive defi cits. 8 Outcome of infants with mild NE have been reported to be comparable to non-affected full-term infants, 2 9 while those with severe NE will either die or

No abstract