Investigation of Motor Abilities According to Gender in Children with Diplegic Cerebral Palsy

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the fine and gross motor skills of children with diplegic Cerebral Palsy (CP) according to gender. Methods: This study was included 73 children with diplegic CP (39 males, mean age: 8.76 ± 1.4; 34 females mean age: 8.29 ± 1.31 years) with a mean age of 6 to 12 years. Bruininks-Oseretsky Test 2-Short Form (BOT2KF), consisting of 8 subtests and 12 items, was used to evaluate the gross and fine motor skills of children. Fine and gross motor skills of children with CP were compared with Student's t-test. Results: According to gender, the BOT2-KF total score and fine motor accuracy, bilateral coordination and upper extremity coordination scores of sub-tests were statistically significant higher in girls than in boys (p <0.05). Conclusion: The results of our current study reflect that fine and gross motor skills of girls with diplegic CP are better than boys. When physiotherapists and occupational therapists determine a multifactor integrated therapeutic approach for children with diplegic CP, they need to determine fine and gross motor skills problems of the children by using objective measurement methods and especially consider differences between genders.