OBJETIVO: Investigar a prevalência de provável desordem coordenativa desenvolvimental e de seu risco e o desenvolvimento típico em meninos e meninas, com quatro a 12 anos de idade. MÉTODOS: Foram avaliadas 1.587 crianças da região Sul do Brasil com o Movement Assessment Battery for Children. Os participantes foram divididos em quatro grupos de acordo com a idade (G1, de quatro a seis anos; G2, de sete a oito; G3, de nove a dez; e G4, de 11 a 12). RESULTADOS: Ao todo, 19,9% das crianças foram identificadas com provável desordem coordenativa desenvolvimental (percentil ≤5%) e 16,8% com risco de tal desordem (percentil ≤15%), todas avaliadas pelo Movement Assessment Battery for Children. Houve interação significativa entre a classificação no Movement Assessment Battery for Children, por grupo de idade e sexo (p<0,0001). A análise por gênero demonstrou maior prevalência de desordem coordenativa desenvolvimental no grupo de meninas nas faixas etárias G3 e G4 (p<0,05). Observaram-se interações significativas para a destreza manual (p=0,0001), habilidades com bola (p<0,0001) e equilíbrio (p<0,0001). Destreza manual foi o item com maior peso nas variações observadas. CONCLUSÕES: As dificuldades nas tarefas de destreza manual repercutiram mais fortemente para o diagnóstico de provável desordem coordenativa desenvolvimental e no risco de tal desordem. Os meninos apresentaram pior desempenho nas tarefas de destreza manual e equilíbrio, enquanto as meninas apresentaram maior deficiência nas habilidades com bola. O desempenho motor deficitário foi mais prevalente no grupo etário de crianças mais velhas.

A espiritualidade está sendo sempre mais pesquisada em sua relação com a saúde mental. O objetivo da pesquisa é descrever como os psicólogos percebem em suas práticas a relação entre espiritualidade/religiosidade e a saúde mental. Trata-se de um estudo exploratório com abordagem qualitativa. A amostra foi composta por 2 grupos de profissionais graduados em Psicologia. Um grupo foi formado por 5 psicólogos do Centro de Atenção Psicossocial de São Leopoldo, o outro por 5 psicólogos de clínicas particulares, selecionados segundo o método da "bola de neve", pelo qual o primeiro é escolhido por conveniência, este indica outro e assim por diante. Os dados foram coletados através de entrevista semiestruturada e interpretados segundo a análise de conteúdo, identificando três categorias temáticas: 1) Saúde mental como equilíbrio e sentido da vida; 2) Espiritualidade/Religiosidade como experiência; 3) Clínica como autoconhecimento e como autonomia.

We investigated finger strength and the ability to control digit force/torque production in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) using manipulative tasks with different kinetic redundancies (KNR). Age-related changes in finger strength and finger force/torque control in typically developing (TD) children were also examined to provide a developmental landscape that allows a comparison with children with DCD. Forty-eight TD children (7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds) and sixteen 9-year-old children with DCD participated in the study. Three isometric tasks with different KNR were tested: constant index finger pressing force production (KNR=0), constant thumb-index finger pinching force production (KNR=1), and constant thumb-index finger torque production (KNR=5). Each subject performed two conditions for each isometric task: maximum voluntary force/torque production and constant force/torque control (40% of maximum force/torque). The results showed that the maximum force/torque production increased and the variability of constant force/torque control decreased with age in all tasks in TD children. Children with DCD showed larger variability than TD children in the constant thumb-index finger pinching torque production. These results suggest that children with DCD, as compared to TD children, are capable of producing the same level of maximum finger force, but have poor control in manipulation tasks with a large number of kinetic redundancies. Keywords motor redundancy; finger force control; development; children; DCD For successful achievement of everyday manipulative tasks, the central nervous system (CNS) is required to control digit-tip forces and moments. During a simple multi-digit prehension task, the hand provides an infinite number of digit-tip contact force and torque solutions available to achieve the motor task. This problem is commonly referred to as motor redundancy [5;28], which requires the CNS to find a solution from the many available kinetic variables. Previous studies have addressed the problem of motor redundancy in manipulative tasks of adults, specifically during prehension of hand-held objects [24;25;29]. However, far less attention has been drawn to how children solve the problem of motor redundancy and no studies have examined how children with motor difficulties such as those with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) [2] handle this problem.

We studied the finger interactions during maximum voluntary force (MVF) production in flexion and extension in children and adults. The goal of this study was to investigate the age-related changes and flexion-extension differences of MVF and finger interaction indices, such as finger inter-dependency (force enslaving (FE): unintended finger forces produced by non-instructed fingers during force production of an instructed finger), force sharing (FS; percent contributions of individual finger forces to the total force at four-finger MVF), and force deficit (FD; force difference between single-finger MVF and the force of the same finger at four-finger MVF). Twenty-five right-handed children of 6-10 years of age and 25 adults of 20-24 years of age participated as subjects in this study (five subjects at each age). During the experiments, the subjects had their forearms secured in armrests. The subjects inserted the distal phalanges of the right hand into C-shaped aluminum thimbles affixed to small force sensors with 200 of flexion about the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint. The subjects were instructed to produce their maximum isometric force with a single finger or all four fingers in flexion or extension. In order to examine the effects of muscle-force relationship on MVF and other digit interaction indices, six subjects were randomly selected from the group of 25 adult subjects and asked to perform the same experimental protocol described above. However, the MCP joint was at 800 of flexion. The results from the 20' of MCP joint flexion showed that (1) MVF increased and finger inter-dependency decreased with children's age, (2) the increasing and decreasing absolute slopes (N/year) from regression analysis were steeper in flexion than extension while the relative slopes (%/year) with respect to adults' maximum finger forces were higher in extension than flexion, (3) the larger MVF, FE, and FD were found in flexion than in extension, (4) the finger FS was very similar in children and adults, (5) the FS pattern of individual fingers was different for flexion and extension, and (6) the differences between flexion and extension found at 20 degrees MCP joint conditions were also valid at 80 degrees MCP joint conditions. We conclude that (a) the finger strength and independency increase from 6 to 10 years of age, and the increasing trends are more evident in flexion than in extension as indexed by the absolute slopes, (b) the finger strength and finger independency is greater in flexion than in extension, and (c) the sharing pattern in children appears to develop before 6 years of age or it is an inherent property of the hand neuromusculoskletal system. One noteworthy observation, which requires further investigation, was that FE was slightly smaller in the 80 degrees condition than in the 20 degrees condition for flexion, but larger for extension for all subjects. This may be interpreted as a greater FE when flexor or extensor muscles are stretched.

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King BR, Oliveira MA, Contreras-Vidal JL, Clark JE. Development of state estimation explains improvements in sensorimotor performance across childhood.

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