Global motion perception is associated with motor function in 2-year-old children

Abstract

The dorsal visual processing stream that includes V1, motion sensitive area V5 and the posterior parietal lobe, supports visually guided motor function. Two recent studies have reported associations between global motion perception, a behavioural measure of processing in V5, and motor function in pre-school and school aged children. This indicates a relationship between visual and motor development and also supports the use of global motion perception to assess overall dorsal stream function in studies of human neurodevelopment. We investigated whether associations between vision and motor function were present at 2 years of age, a substantially earlier stage of development. The Bayley III test of Infant and Toddler Development and measures of vision including visual acuity (Cardiff Acuity Cards), stereopsis (Lang stereotest) and global motion perception were attempted in 404 2-year-old children (± 4 weeks). Global motion perception (quantified as a motion coherence threshold) was assessed by observing optokinetic nystagmus in response to random dot kinematograms of varying coherence. Linear regression revealed that global motion perception was modestly, but statistically significantly associated with Bayley III composite motor (r2 = 0.06, p < 0.001, n = 375) and gross motor scores (r2 = 0.06, p < 0.001, n = 375). The associations remained significant when language score was included in the regression model. In addition, when language score was included in the model, stereopsis was significantly associated with composite motor and fine motor scores, but unaided visual acuity was not statistically significantly associated with any of the motor scores. These results demonstrate that global motion perception and binocular vision are associated with motor function at an early stage of development. Global motion perception can be used as a partial measure of dorsal stream function from early childhood.

Vision Development Differences between Slow and Fast Motor Development in Typical Developing Toddlers: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Toddlers with slow gross motor development had a greater tendency of exophoria and a further near point of convergence (NPC) than toddlers with fast gross motor development. These findings agree with previous studies that demonstrated the link among the visual and motor systems in babies, toddlers, and children [4,[13][14][15][16][17]19,21,[24][25][26].…”

“…Their results demonstrated that global perception of movement and binocular vision are associated with motor function at an early stage of development as measured by the Bayley Scale of Infant and Toddler Development 3rd edition (BSID-III). All of the scientific literature reviewed included babies and toddlers [12,[22][23][24] with some form of visual impairment or born with risk factors for neurological development [25,26]. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report to study visual and motor development in a sample of between two and three-year-olds both visually and from the perspective of motor development.…”

Visual Global Processing and Subsequent Verbal and Non-Verbal Development: An EEG Study of Infants at Elevated versus Low Likelihood for Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…The observed association between GMP and language ability is in line with previous research that showed concurrent links between GMP and verbal ability in 2-and 4.5-year-old children (Chakraborty et al, 2017;Thompson et al, 2017). The present findings add to the literature by demonstrating for the first time that early GMP may also be associated with later language ability.…”

Neonatal Glycaemia and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…The development of visual and motor systems is closely related [29], and coordination of visual-motor function is thought to occur within the ventral and dorsal cortical visual streams. The ventral stream supports form processing and object recognition, and includes the occipital primary visual cortex and the inferior temporal lobe.…”