Visual motor integration and overall development of preterm and at term children at the beginning of schooling

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the influence of prematurity and low birth weight on development indicators, such as visual motor coordination, visual perceptive and fine motor skills of children in early schooling, as well as their relations with rates of global developmental delay. Method: It is a comparative study of case-control type. The research included 18 children with a history of preterm birth (Study Group), matched with 18 children without the same history (Comparison Group). These children were evaluated by the Denver Developmental Screening Test II and the test of Visual Motor Integration -VMI. Results: Statistical tests revealed significant differences between the Study Group and the Comparison Group regarding the visual motor (p = 0,000) and fine motor (p = 0,007) variables, while significant difference in performance between the Low Birth Weight and Appropriate Birth Weight groups was observed in the visual motor (p = 0,000), visual perceptive (p = 0,016) and fine motor (p = 0,036) variables, demonstrating that weight is more influential than prematurity in visual perception performance. Significant differences were observed in all parts of the VMI instrument (p = 0.001, p = 0.000, p = 0.000) when compared to the Denver Suspect and Denver Normal groups; it is possible to observed that poor performance on screening tests for development can be a predictive factor for poor performance on tests of visual motor integration. Conclusions: Preterm children showed worse performance in the assessment instruments confirming that preterm birth represents a risk to development. Skills of greater complexity required during schooling for reading and writing can be influenced by the visual motor, visual perceptive and fine motor difficulties.

Associação entre o desenvolvimento neuropsicomotor e fatores de risco biológico e ambientais em crianças na primeira infância

“…Thus, we suggested that greater access to information is related to greater availability of toys and, consequently, to a better stimulation of fine motor skills. Previous studies indicate that preterm children present significantly worse performance in writing, in sensory-motor tasks, manipulative tasks, visuomotor integration, visuoperceptive tasks and sensorial awareness when compared to children born at term 24 .…”

General anesthetics in children: neurotoxic or neuroprotective?

“…Some questions were answered; however, most are yet to be elucidated. [12,23] Several epidemiological studies have implicated the exposure to general anesthetic in early stages of life as responsible for a higher incidence of learning disorders. This effect was more evident after multiple exposures.…”

The effect of parent-administered infant massage on the developmental outcomes of premature infants

“…In a 2014 study on premature infants with low birth weights, it was found that at a corrected age of 18-24 months, children displayed developmental delays in multiple areas such as motor skills, cognition and language 5 . Furthermore, infants who are born prematurely or extremely prematurely, are at risk for later visual-motor integration and higher-order visual problems which impact on school-related tasks [6][7][8][9] . Traditionally, occupational therapy offered to premature infants addressed specific deficits such as abnormal muscle tone, decreased range of motion at specific joints or a developmental delay which could have multiple causes 10 .…”