ABSTRACT
The chapter reports analyses of perceptuo-motor performance in young children with cerebral palsy and in normal children. The studies, aimed at understanding the underlying disorders, were concerned with the following basic perceptuo-motor functions that are necessary in establishing a frame of reference for action: (a) gearing vision to the environment by coordinated head and eye movements, so that adequate information can be picked up when an object of interest and/or the person is moving; (b) gearing together the visual and nonvisual proprioceptive systems so that coordinated body movements are possible. Both these fundamental functions were found impaired in young hemiparetic cerebral-palsied children.
In stabilizing gaze, the hemiparetic children showed weak eye/target gearing, even compared with normal 11-week-old infants, and they also appeared deficient in head/target gearing. Because head-eye coordination in stabilizing gaze was found normally to develop rapidly between about 11 and 16 weeks and show quite a consistent pattern, valuable information might be obtained about basic perceptuo-motor development in young infants with known or suspected brain damage by measuring gaze stabilization performance. The information could be useful, for example, in setting up exercise programs to help overcome deficiencies in gaze stabilization—a skill on which many other skills depend.
Early assessment of proprioception is equally important. The present study revealed different forms of disorder. In two hemiparetic children the sensed position of the head/eyes was affected, which impaired visual localization of objects. In two others, active localization with the hemiparetic arm was affected. Such detailed information could be valuable for therapy.
