Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Online control of prehension predicts performance on a standardised motor assessment test in 8-12 year old children

Blanchard, Caroline C.; McGlashan, Hannah L.; French, Blandine; Sperring, Rachel J.; Petrocochino, Biana; Holmes, Nicholas P.

Online control of prehension predicts performance on a standardised motor assessment test in 8-12 year old children Thumbnail


Authors

Caroline C. Blanchard

Hannah L. McGlashan

Blandine French

Rachel J. Sperring

Biana Petrocochino

Nicholas P. Holmes



Abstract

Goal-directed hand movements are guided by sensory information and may be adjusted 'online', during the movement. If the target of a movement unexpectedly changes position, trajectory corrections can be initiated in as little as 100ms in adults. This rapid visual online control is impaired in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD), and potentially in other neurodevelopmental conditions. We investigated the visual control of hand movements in children in a 'centre-out' double-step reaching and grasping task, and examined how parameters of this visuomotor control co-vary with performance on standardised motor tests often used with typically and atypically developing children. Two groups of children aged 8-12 years were asked to reach and grasp an illuminated central ball on a vertically oriented board. On a proportion of trials, and at movement onset, the illumination switched unpredictably to one of four other balls in a centre-out configuration (left, right, up, or down). When the target moved, all but one of the children were able to correct their movements before reaching the initial target, at least on some trials, but the latencies to initiate these corrections were longer than those typically reported in the adult literature, ranging from 211 to 581 ms. These later corrections may be due to less developed motor skills in children, or to the increased cognitive and biomechanical complexity of switching movements in four directions. In the first group (n=187), reaching and grasping parameters significantly predicted standardised movement scores on the MABC-2, most strongly for the aiming and catching component. In the second group (n=85), these same parameters did not significantly predict scores on the DCDQ-07 parent questionnaire. Our reaching and grasping task provides a sensitive and continuous measure of movement skill that predicts scores on standardized movement tasks used to screen for DCD.

Citation

Blanchard, C. C., McGlashan, H. L., French, B., Sperring, R. J., Petrocochino, B., & Holmes, N. P. (2017). Online control of prehension predicts performance on a standardised motor assessment test in 8-12 year old children. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, Article 374. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00374

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Feb 26, 2017
Publication Date Mar 16, 2017
Deposit Date Mar 13, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Frontiers in Psychology
Electronic ISSN 1664-1078
Publisher Frontiers Media
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 8
Article Number 374
DOI https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00374
Keywords developmental coordination disorder, MABC-2, DCDQ’07, Hand, Motor Skills, online control, reaching, grasping, reach-to-grasp
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/850936
Publisher URL http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00374/full

Files





You might also like



Downloadable Citations