Rhythmic motor behavior of preambulatory motor impaired, down syndrome and nondisabled children: A comparative analysis

Abstract

The developmental course of rhythmic motor behavior was followed longitudinally for three groups of preambulatory children--normally developing, Down syndrome, and those with profound motor impairment. The groups differed in chronological age but were comparable with respect to motor age. The motor impaired subjects displayed significantly less rhythmic motor behavior than the nondisabled and Down syndrome groups. In comparing particular subtypes of rhythmic motor behavior, differences were found in both the average number of bouts and duration of subtypes among the groups. Longitudinal analyses of the data over the entire observation period revealed that the rhythmic motor behavior of the children with Down syndrome was more similar to that exhibited by the nondisabled children than was the rhythmic motor behavior of the children with motor impairment. However, there was considerable variability among the groups in several particular subtypes.

Spontaneous Leg Movements of Infants with down Syndrome and Nondisabled Infants

“…Wolff (1967) reported that when infants with DS began to produce rhythmical patterns they did so more frequently than ND infants. MacLean et al (1991), however, found no significant difference in the overall frequency of patterned movements generated by infants with DS and a group of motor-age-matched ND infants.…”

“…Limited attempts have been made to assess spontaneous patterned movements in infants with DS. One consistent observation, however, has been that the order in which rhythmical patterns, such as body rocking, leg kicking, and arm banging, emerge is similar to that of ND infants but delayed (Kravitz & Boehm, 1971;MacLean et al, 1991;Wolff, 1967). The frequency with which infants with DS produce these behaviors at any point in developmental time is less clear.…”

“…It is clear that ND infants generate lots of spontaneous movements and that their movements frequently include an array of patterned behaviors,1 such as kicking, bouncing, banging, arm waving, and foot thumping (Kravitz & Boehm, 1971;MacLean, Ellis, Galbreath, Halpern, & Baumeister, 1991;Thelen, 1979). Limited attempts have been made to assess spontaneous patterned movements in infants with DS.…”

Examining Dementia in Down's Syndrome (DS)

“…There was also a greater variance in the scores of the Down's syndrome clients. It is known that people with Down's syndrome have developmental delays (Maclean et al, 1991) and very often also have expressive (Young & Kramer, 1991) and receptive (Hartley, 1982) language difficulties. Therefore, it is proposed that the differences in scores between people with Down's syndrome and other learning disabilities may be due partly to the known differences in understanding language and in the ability for expressive language.…”

“…Often the person has developmental delays (Maclean et al, 1991), sometimes a slightly larger head circumference (Palmer et al, 1992), and language difficulties, especially with ageing (Young & Kramer, 1991). Down's syndrome has been the focus of much research and controversy (Barr, 1990); because of increased longevity, individuals with Down's syndrome are living long enough to be at risk for a host of age-related diseases, for example, pre-senile dementia (Wisniewski et al, 1983).…”