DO CHILDREN WITH LANGUAGE DYSFUNCTION HAVE VISUAL-MOTOR PROCESSING DIFFICULTIES?: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY OF TYPICALLY AND ATYPICALLY DEVELOPED ARGENTINIAN CHILDREN

摘要

Objective: Visual-motor coordination is of great importance for its influence in language development and processing. Thus, the aim of this work is to describe the variability in visual-motor abilities in children with typical and atypical language development. Method: In this cross-sectional study, six-, seven- and eight-year-old children (n=28) were evaluated with the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities. Statistical analysis included Student's t-test in order to find differences. Results: It was found that the six- and eight-year-old samples with atypical development presented a lower performance in visual-motor sequential memory (p<0.05). In addition, in atypically developed six-year-old children, a lower performance was observed in the manual expression subtest (p<0.01). Conclusions: An alteration in the development of language was associated with a deficiency in manipulative and visual resolution, in which could underlie an impaired working memory, cerebellar dysfunction, among other mechanism.