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Refractive errors in infancy predict reduced performance on the Movement Assessment Battery for Children at 31/2 and 51/2 years
Author(s) -
Atkinson Janette,
Nardini Marko,
Anker Shirley,
Braddick Oliver,
Hughes Clare,
Rae Sarah
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
developmental medicine and child neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.658
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1469-8749
pISSN - 0012-1622
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8749.2005.tb01129.x
Subject(s) - movement assessment , emmetropia , psychology , gross motor skill , motor skill , balance (ability) , audiology , pediatrics , physical therapy , medicine , refractive error , developmental psychology , ophthalmology , eye disease
We have previously reported that significant hyperopia at 9 months predicts mild deficits on visuocognitive and visuomotor measures between 2 years and 5 years 6 months. Here we compare the motor skills of children who had been hyperopic in infancy (hyperopic group) with those who had been emmetropic (control group), using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (Movement ABC). Children were tested at 3 years 6 months (hyperopic group: 47 males, 63 females, mean age 3y 7mo, SD 1.6mo; control group: 61 males, 70 females, mean age 3y 7mo, SD 1.2mo) and at 5 years 6 months (hyperopic group: 43 males, 56 females, mean age 5y 4mo, SD 1.7mo; control group: 51 males, 62 females, mean age 5y 3mo, SD 1.6mo). The hyperopic group performed significantly worse at both ages, overall and on at least one test from each category of motor skill (manual dexterity, balance, and ball skills). Distributions of scores showed that these differences were not due to poor performance by a minority but to a widespread mild deficit in the hyperopic group. This study also provides the first normative data on the Movement ABC for children below 4 years of age, and shows that it provides a useful measure of motor development at this young age.