Types of prehension in children with Williams–Beuren syndrome: A pilot study

Abstract

As part of a more extensive research program investigating cognitive, linguistic and motor skills in children with Williams – Beuren syndrome (WBS) we made some preliminary observations of prehension movements. Eight children, in a restricted age range (9 – 11 years), took part in the pilot study. We individuated and classified three types of prehension in two different tasks: the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI) for assessing perceptual and motor skills, and the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (M-ABC) for assessing manual dexterity. Sixteen typically developing children, individually matched with WBS children, were also assessed, resulting in two different comparison groups: 8 children were matched for mental age and 8 for chronological age. A peculiar type of prehension (referred to as the “lateral grip”) was used by all children with WBS, but was only rarely observed in the comparison groups. These findings can contribute to a better description of motor development in children with WBS and to a better understanding of their visuospatial difficulties.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge financial support from grants: Fondazione Monte of Parma, FIRB/MIUR “Action and Perception in the construction of the cognitive world” (RBNE01SZB4) and the Fondation Jérôme Lejeune. The research has been conducted through the special agreement between ISTC-CNR, the Italian Williams Syndrome Association and ASL No. 8, Regione Sardegna.

We express our gratitude to all the children who took part in the study and to their families. We thank Elena Pizzuto, Maurizio Gentilucci, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on an earlier version of the paper.