The effects of age on basic fine motor functions were assessed using a kinematic analysis of simple repetitive drawing movements in a sample of 53 right-handed children aged 7 to 14 years 11 months and 16 adults aged 27 to 54 years with no detectable abnormality with neurological examination. Lines, circles, and half-circles were drawn at a self-chosen and maximum velocity with a pressure-sensitive pen on a computer graphics tablet. Patterns generated by finger, wrist, and arm movements, and those generated by combined finger–wrist movements with and without a change in the drawing direction were analysed. The frequencies of all movement patterns increased until adulthood: 0.1 Hz per year for half-circles, 0.15 to 0.2 Hz per year for circles and lines generated by arm and wrist movements. The greatest increase (0.35 Hz per year) was observed for lines produced by finger movements. Differences in movement frequencies between finger versus wrist or arm movements when drawing lines decreased from about 3 Hz in 7- to 8-year-olds to 0.5 to 1 Hz in adolescents. In adults the difference between maximum finger, wrist, and arm movement frequencies decreased to almost zero. In contrast, the differences in movement patterns with and without change in direction remained stable until adulthood. Based on these results it is hypothesized that the differential effects of finger and more proximally generated movements on age reflect maturation of distinct neuronal sites of the cortico-striatal–cerebellar circuit rather than acquisition of motor skills or myelinization of corticospinal pathways.

In the current study, movement ability and underlying kinaesthetic processes of boys with attention deficit–hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were compared with a group of control children. Two groups of 16 boys with either predominantly inattentive subtype ADHD (ADHD-PI) or combined subtype ADHD (ADHD-C) were compared with 16 control boys matched on age and verbal IQ. The findings demonstrated that the children with ADHD had significantly poorer movement ability than the control children. A high percentage of children with ADHD displayed movement difficulties consistent with developmental coordination disorder. In addition, the current study found that the type and degree of movement difficulty differed between subtypes. Children with ADHD-PI had significantly poorer fine motor skill while children with ADHD-C were found to experience significantly greater difficulty with gross motor skill. The severity of the children's inattentive symptomatology was found to be a significant predictor of motor coordination difficulties. Kinaesthetic sensitivity was not found to differ significantly between the groups.

The placentas of 68 infants with intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) were examined for evidence of impaired uteroplacental circulation and compared with those of 65 appropriately grown infants. Infarcts and/or accelerated villous maturation were present in the placentas in 27 (40%) of the infants with IUGR compared with seven (11%) of the infants without IUGR (P<0.001). The infants were followed-up at 4 and 12 months of age and growth parameters recorded. Medical and developmental assessments and neuromotor developmental examinations were also performed. The 23 infants in the IUGR group with placentas with evidence of impaired uteroplacental circulation were compared with the 31 infants with IUGR with normal placentas. There was no difference between the groups in growth, cognitive development, or neuromotor abnormality. It was concluded that IUGR is strongly associated with placental markers of impaired uteroplacental blood flow while it would appear that there is no association between placental pathology and growth or neurodevelopment in the first year.

Benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BCECTS) is a well-known idiopathic age- and localization-related epileptic syndrome with characteristic clinical and EEG manifestations. Due to the reported benign evolution of this epilepsy syndrome, neuropsychological assessment has been considered unnecessary. However, the benign nature of BCECTS has recently been challenged: verbal dysfunction as well as impaired visuomotor coordination, specific learning disabilities, and attention deficit have been noticed. These findings prompted this research study in which all children with BCECTS attending our epilepsy clinic underwent neuropsychological assessment. Seventeen children (10 boys and seven girls) aged 7 to 14 years were investigated with a neuropsychological test battery focusing on immediate and delayed recall of auditory-verbal and visual material, verbal fluency, problem-solving ability, and visuospatial constructional ability. Raven's coloured matrices and questionnaires regarding school functioning and behaviour were also administered. The children were matched with control subjects for age, sex, and school. Children with BCECTS had significantly lower scores than their control subject partners on the neuropsychological items. Intellectual abilities did not differ and neither did school functioning or behaviour according to teachers. Parents, however, recognized greater difficulties with concentration, temperament, and impulsiveness in children with BCECTS.

Two-hundred infants of <30 weeks gestational age were included in a randomized double-blind controlled trial to study the effect of thyroxine administration on neurodevelopmental outcome in very preterm children. The infants were given either a fixed dose of thyroxine (8 µg/kg birthweight/day) or placebo for the first 6 weeks of life. This paper evaluates the effect of thyroxine administration on behavioural outcome at the age of 2 years. More externalizing, especially destructive, behaviours were found in the group given thyroxine than in the placebo group. This difference was more pronounced in boys and in children born after 27 weeks' gestation. The thyroxine-treated children with behavioural problems had lower plasma-free thyroxine levels than the thyroxine-treated children without behavioural problems. This finding suggests that the presence of more behavioural problems in the group given thyroxine was not an immediate consequence of the treatment.

Independent mobility in early childhood has been associated with the development of various cognitive and psychosocial skills. However, children with physical disabilities are not always able to move independently and may be at risk for delays in these areas. Early provision of powered mobility can offer young children an opportunity for independent mobility. Despite this, there is little information to help determine when a young child has the cognitive skills necessary to operate a powered wheelchair safely. This current research aims to identify these skills. A cognitive assessment battery and a wheelchair mobility training and assessment program were developed. Twenty-six children with physical disabilities between the ages of 20 and 36 months were evaluated on the cognitive assessment and participated in the wheelchair training and assessment program. A stepwise regression analysis was used to determine which of the cognitive skills predicted wheelchair mobility performance. The cognitive domains of spatial relations and problem solving were found to be significant and accounted for 57% of the variance in wheelchair skills. Developmental cut-off points on these scales as they relate to wheelchair skills are presented and clinical applications are discussed.

To test the validity of a new computerized task to assess children's receptive vocabulary, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 56 typically developing children ranging in age from 5 to 12 years. This ERP-computerized vocabulary task does not require a child to give a verbal or motor (i.e. pointing) response. Single pictures, from an existing standardized test of receptive vocabulary, were presented on a computer screen and simultaneously named either correctly (congruent) or incorrectly (incongruent) via a computer. As predicted, the N400 amplitude was found to be significantly higher to the incongruent picture–word pair (i.e. the child knew it was an incorrect pairing) than to the congruent picture–word pair (i.e. the child knew it was a correct pairing). This effect was found for each of the four age groups (5 to 6 years, 7 to 8 years, 9 to 10 years, 11 to 12 years). This task accurately estimated current receptive vocabulary in typically developing children. Although still in the development stage, it may eventually serve as an adjunct to a thorough neurological and neurodevelopmental assessment of some children presenting with moderate to severe cerebral palsy.

Cognitive performance in 7- to 9-year-old preterm neonatal intensive-care survivors was compared with that in age-matched control children. Non-verbal memory span, spatial working-memory abilities, planning, set-shifting, and recognition memory for both spatial and patterned stimuli were assessed using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Testing Automated Battery. Relative to children in the control group, neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU) survivors demonstrated 25% more memory errors on the spatial working-memory task. Their use of strategy on this task was similar to a control group of 5-year-olds. Planning times on ‘Tower of London’ problems were long relative to those of term controls. NICU survivors demonstrated poorer pattern recognition as well as a shorter spatial memory span. The groups did not differ in visual-discrimination learning or in spatial-recognition memory. No specific neonatal risk factor accounted for the observed differences, although scores on the Neurobiological Risk Score (NBRS), a composite measure of neonatal risk, did predict several aspects of later task performance. Whether these data reflect a developmental delay in brain maturation in NICU survivors or the presence of a permanent information-processing deficit due to adverse neonatal events must be assessed through continued follow-up.

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure manual praxis by assessing areas of function considered important in learning and planning movement; use of tools, imitation of gesture, and motor sequencing. Participants included 362 healthy children aged between 3 and 12 years. Their parents completed a questionnaire on hand skills. Performance on all tasks improved with age. However, transitive gestures reached an early ceiling effect at around 5 years of age. Assessment of manual praxis from the parental questionnaire correlated with the child's directly measured competency during a test of object use (P<0.01) but not with the ability to imitate transitive gestures or enact a motor sequence with a ‘novel’ task. Children from schools where a higher number were eligible for free school meals because of low family income had more difficulty with imitation of gesture and motor sequencing to verbal and picture commands (P<0.001, P<0.05, P<0.05). They were neither disadvantaged in tool use nor in appreciation of extracorporeal space. The pattern of errors made in tool use and motor sequencing differed from those described in adults with acquired dyspraxia. These results suggest that assessment of manual praxis in clinical populations should include tool use, imitation of gesture, and motor sequencing and that they should not necessarily be regarded as measuring a unitary function.

Three seizure types have been described in the neonate: electroclinical, electrographic, and clinical only. Controversy still exists about whether the episodic abnormal movements seen in some infants, which are not accompanied by simultaneous ictal discharges on the EEG, are true seizures. Twenty-four infants with seizures were studied, 17 had purely electrographic and/or electroclinical seizures, seven had clinical-only seizures; six of these seven had clonic seizures, without facial manifestations or autonomic change. The three seizure types were investigated using video-EEG and a Griffiths neurodevelopmental assessment was performed in each seizure group. Of the seven infants with clinical-only seizures, six had clonic seizures with a normal background EEG, neuroimaging studies and neurodevelopmental follow-up assessment were normal in five. In the remaining 17 infants with electrographic and/or electroclinical seizures, seizure discharges were often associated with ocular phenomena, apnoea, or tonic posturing, and the background EEG was abnormal in all but one subject. Neurodevelopmental follow-up assessments revealed a poor outcome(14 of 17) in this group. In otherwise healthy infants, purely clonic seizures involving only the limbs may be a benign phenomenon and an EEG should be obtained to avoid unnecessary treatment. Infants with seizures superimposed on an abnormal background EEG pattern had a poor outcome.

This study aimed to identify the sexual and reproductive health knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour of young people, aged between 14 and 23 years, with spina bifida who had attended the Spina Bifida Clinic at a tertiary centre in Melbourne, Australia within the past 10 years. Subjects participated in a structured interview and their parents completed a written questionnaire. Fifty-one (55%) of 93 eligible young people and 69 of 97 parents (71%) participated. Most young people were satisfied with the amount of general sex education they had received. However, 95% stated they had inadequate knowledge about sexual and reproductive health relating to spina bifida and 59% of parents considered they had inadequate knowledge. Thirty-nine percent of young people and 30% of parents had discussed sexuality issues with a doctor. However, 93% of young people and 100% of parents said that they would definitely talk about these issues if the discussions were initiated by their doctor. A significant degree of sexual intimacy was reported, with 60% reporting an intimate relationship, and 25% (10 females, three males) reporting sexual intercourse. Thirty-seven percent of females had experienced unwanted sexual attention, and 30% reported unwanted sexual touching. This study suggests that health professionals should pay greater attention to sexual and reproductive health issues in young people with spina bifida.

Cutaneomuscular reflex (CMR) responses were recorded from lower-limb and trunk muscles in 27 subjects with cerebral palsy (CP) (spastic, 21; athetoid, six) and in neurologically healthy (control) subjects, aged 3 to 15 years, while standing. In the 21 subjects with spastic CP, but not in the six subjects with athetoid CP, CMR responses were more widely distributed between ipsilateral lower-limb and trunk muscles compared with age-matched control children. CMR responses in older subjects with CP were similar to younger control subjects, lacking supraspinally mediated, long-latency components. Short-latency, spinally-mediated, excitatory CMR components were seen simultaneously in pairs of distal, antagonistic lower-limb muscles in half of the subjects with spastic CP, but in none of the control children. In subjects with spastic-type CP, the abnormal reflex responses indicate disordered spinal and supraspinal inputs to motor neurones, although there was no convincing correlation between these responses and the severity of spasticity.

Studies on precocious puberty have primarily focused on children with typical patterns of growth and cognitive development. This study reviewed diagnostic data from the records of 15719 patients with neurodevelopmental disabilities for diagnoses associated with premature sexual development/precocious puberty. Thirty-two individuals with premature sexual development were identified, with the earliest changes seen in one girl at 1 year 7 months of age. In this group, the mean age at onset was 7 years 2 months in boys and 5 years 11 months in girls. Central precocious puberty, which was the most common cause of onset of early pubertal changes, was present in 15 of the 32 children. The results of this study suggest that children with a neurodevelopmental disability are at increased risk of premature pubertal changes when compared to children without a neurodevelopmental disability. This study indicates the need for health-care providers to be vigilant in screening for early pubertal changes in children with neurodevelopmental disabilities.

We investigated the features of children with spinal cord insults (SCI) occurring in the pre-, peri-, and neonatal periods by sending 340 questionnaires to all paediatric neurologists, paediatric urologists, and neonatologists in the UK and Ireland. We requested information about timing, nature, and level of SCI in their patients; family and maternal history; pregnancy, delivery, and neonatal period; clinical presentation, imaging, laboratory studies, and outcome. Two-hundred and sixty-one questionnaires were returned with data on 58 patients with SCI. Seven out of the 58 children with SCI had pure dysraphic cord syndromes and were excluded. Fifty-one patients (33 males, 17 females, one unknown), born between 1972 and 1996, remained. Clinical presentations included severe respiratory failure ( N=20; five of whom died neonatally) and hypotonia or weakness recognized either during the neonatal period (N=12) or after 28 days (N=10). Data on clinical presentation were not given in nine cases. Lesions were cervical (N=22) and thoraco-lumbar (N=29). SCI was ascribed to ischaemia (N=12), trauma (N=4), and other associated underlying conditions (N=11), whilst the aetiology was unknown in 24 cases. Mean gestational age (36.2 weeks) and birthweight (2.6 kg) were lower than previously reported with the lowest figures associated with thoraco-lumbar and ischaemic lesions. More males were affected by lesions than females and the incidence of preterm delivery, multiple pregnancy, breech presentation, forceps delivery, and caesarean delivery were higher than average. Forceps delivery was associated with cervical lesions. Outcome data were given in 47 children, nine of whom died either neonatally or within the first 20 months of life. Motor disability ranged from a complete recovery in one out of 40 to paraparesis in 26 out of 40, and tetraparesis in 13 out of 40 patients: 17 out of 39 were ambulant. Sphincter dysfunction was present in 22 out of 38 patients and scoliosis in 16 out of 37. Learning difficulties were present in 10 out of 39, behavioural problems in five out of 39 and seizures in four out of 39 patients. SCI in the pre-, peri-, and neonatal periods are rare but probably under-diagnosed and are heterogeneous in aetiology, presentation, and outcome. Boys appear to be more susceptible than girls.

The prevalence of intellectual-, language-, and prereading-skill deficits was investigated in a geographically defined whole-population sample of very preterm children at 6 years of age in southern Germany. The sample consisted of the following: 264 very preterm children (75.6% of German-speaking survivors); 264 term controls (matched for sex, socioeconomic status [SES], marital status and age of mother); and a representative normative sample for Bavaria (N=311). Compared with term peers, very preterm children scored significantly lower (approximately −1 SD) on the measures of cognitive and language skills and had major cognitive deficits (<−2 SD) 10 to 35 times more often than the controls. Deficits in speech articulation and prereading skills (<10th centile) were three to five times more frequent in very preterm children. More than 18% of very preterm children had cognitive deficits in more than five areas of functioning, compared with no control children. The differences between very preterm children and controls remained highly significant when only very preterm children (N=229) and controls (N=261) without major neurosensory impairment were considered. Little evidence for specific cognitive deficits was found once mental processing measured in the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) was controlled for. The effect of preterm birth on cognitive abilities was found to be larger than the influence of SES. In conclusion, there was a high prevalence of long-term multiple cognitive problems in very preterm children. These persistent cognitive problems appear to be of pre- or neonatal (treatment) rather than postnatal social origin.

The electromyographic (EMG) responses to tendon taps at the ankle and ensuing muscular twitch forces and temporal parameters were studied at varying angles across the joint range in 18 children, aged 3 to 14.9 years, with congenital hemiparetic cerebral palsy and 22 healthy (control) children, aged 3 to 13.6 years. Those subjects with hemiparesis were community ambulators without assistance. In all subjects, passive muscle stretch caused a waxing of the reflex EMG and twitch force near neutral (with the sole of the foot at right angles to the tibia) and a diminution of these with further dorsiflexion. Twitch times increased with each dorsiflexing increment, being slowest at maximum dorsiflexion and fastest at the resting plantarflexion angle. Heterogeneity of the hemiparetic-limb data is evident when compared with data of non-paretic and unaffected limbs, with clear differences in the clonic (fast twitch) as opposed to non-clonic (slow twitch) muscles. In four cases with clinical clonus, clonus frequency was reduced by passive dorsiflexion. Plaster immobilization for 1 month produced clonus which was previously absent in one subject, and caused a fast-twitch phenotype to emerge in two subjects. Follow-up after heel-cord lengthening in one subject showed that clonus frequency diminished from 9 to 3 Hz with slowing and strengthening of muscle-twitch phenotype. Short- and long-term peripheral manipulations appear to regulate neuromuscular excitability according to whether muscles are loaded or unloaded. Although damage to the nervous system provides the setting for reflex excitability, the data suggest that the muscle length (which specifies the joint angle) and the muscle-twitch phenotype of any given limb for any given case appear to dictate the actual speed and strength of reflex muscle-twitch and clonus profiles. This study illustrates how peripheral manipulations of muscles and tendons may alter the expression of what have hitherto been considered as exclusively central phenomena.

Previous studies of grasping and object manipulation in children with cerebral palsy (CP) have suggested a dichotomy in the ability to use anticipatory control (planning) of the fingertip force output, depending on the type of sensory information (tactile or proprioceptive) on which it is based. The present study further explores this issue by testing the ability of 15 children with hemiplegic CP aged between 8 and 14 years to scale the fingertip force output in advance during the lifting of small objects whose weight and surface texture are varied. The results indicate that children with hemiplegia can use anticipatory control based on both the weight and texture of the object, but require a greater number of trials than age-matched children without CP (control children) before they can do so. We suggest that the initial lack of anticipatory control results from an indistinct internal representation of the object's physical properties due to disturbed sensory mechanisms, which may have direct implications for therapeutic intervention.

Although ankle–foot orthoses (AFOs) are frequently prescribed to correct skeletal malalignment in children with spastic diplegia, their effect on standing balance abilities has not been documented. This study investigated balance differences related to the presence of pathology and orthotic conditions during conditions of unexpected stance perturbation by comparing four children aged between 3½ and 15 years with spastic cerebral palsy and four control children matched for years of independent walking experience. Electromyographic and kinematic data were collected and compared between groups and in three orthotic conditions (no AFOs, solid AFOs, dynamic AFOs). Results revealed that balance responses of children with spasticity were characterized by: increased coactivation of muscles as opposed to distal to proximal recruitment, decreased presence of upright posture in stance, increased use of ‘on-toes’ strategies, and different sway characteristics compared with the typically developing children. In both groups of children, the use of solid AFOs during perturbed stance resulted in: decreased activation of gastrocnemius muscles, disorganized muscle-response patterns, decreased use of ankle strategies, and increased joint angular velocities at the knee compared with conditions without AFOs or with dynamic AFOs. These preliminary results support the use of dynamic AFOs to correct skeletal malalignment in children with spastic diplegia.

Data are presented on 157 newborn infants followed sequentially in a randomized home-based nursing-intervention trial for drug-exposed infants with follow up at 3 (N=118), 6 (N=124), and 12 months (N=77). The objectives of this study were to describe the longitudinal neurodevelopmental status of a cohort of children with intrauterine exposure to illicit drugs during their gestation, characterize the evolution of early tone abnormalities in a polydrug-exposed cohort, and determine whether neuromotor outcome is associated with drug-exposure patterns. For analysis, infants were grouped based on maternal drug-use pattern and the presence of drug metabolites in the neonatal drug screen. The sequential neuromotor examination was used at each age to define the neuromotor status of six domains and define categorical classifications as either normal, suspect, or abnormal. Multiple patterns of neuromotor abnormalities were observed during the neonatal period; most resolved over time. Axial hypotonia was a prominent finding in the neonatal period; however, it was infrequent in abnormal examinations at 12 months. Increased lower-extremity tone was a less frequent finding during the neonatal period. Infants whose neonatal urine drug screen was positive for both cocaine and opiates, were more likely than infants with negative urine drug screens, cocaine only, or opiate only drug screen results to have abnormal neuromotor examinations; while positive maternal drug screens for concurrent cocaine and opiate use were associated with peripheral hypertonia. Persistence of increased leg-extensor tone was found in 67% of the abnormal examinations at 12 months. Acquisition of rolling and walking was delayed in the drug-exposed cohort.

To summarize our 10-year experience with autistic children at the Tel Aviv Child Development Center, the files of all 55 children with autism treated at our center over a 10-year period were retrospectively reviewed. Particular attention was addressed to the value of the medical work-up in detecting the etiology of autism and to factors differentiating infantile autism (IA) from autistic-like behavior (ALB). Twenty-four subjects (44%) had IA and 31 (56%) had ALB. These subgroups were compared for demographic, perinatal, familial, neurological, and psychological findings, and outcome at discharge. Associated medical conditions and the yield of metabolic work-up and neuroimaging and electroencephalography studies are discussed. The two subgroups differed only in severity of autistic symptoms and cognitive function (P<0.05), but not in demographic or neurobiological findings. It was concluded that IA and ALB are similar conditions, and autism has a wide continuum of clinical expressions.