Early motor development and later language and reading skills in children at risk of familial dyslexia

Abstract

Relationships between early motor development and language and reading skills were studied in 154 children, of whom 75 had familial risk of dyslexia (37 females, 38 males; at-risk group) and 79 constituted a control group (32 females, 47 males). Motor development was assessed by a structured parental questionnaire during the child's first year of life. Vocabulary and inflectional morphology skills were used as early indicators of language skills at 3 years 6 months and 5 years or 5 years 6 months of age, and reading speed was used as a later indicator of reading skills at 7 years of age. The same subgroups as in our earlier study (in which the cluster analysis was described) were used in this study. The three subgroups of the control group were 'fast motor development', 'slow fine motor development', and 'slow gross motor development', and the two subgroups of the at-risk group were 'slow motor development' and 'fast motor development'. A significant difference was found between the development of expressive language skills. Children with familial risk of dyslexia and slow motor development had a smaller vocabulary with poorer inflectional skills than the other children. They were also slower in their reading speed at the end of the first grade at the age of 7 years. Two different associations are discussed, namely the connection between early motor development and language development, and the connection between early motor development and reading speed.

An epidemiological study on Finnish school-aged children with learning difficulties and behavioural problems

“…This result is in line with previous studies (8,23,25), but contradictory results have also been reported. For example, Shapiro et al (38) indicated that reading delay is better predicted using infant language measures than using measures of early motor development.…”

Trajectories of Reading Development: A Follow-up From Birth to School Age of Children With and Without Risk for Dyslexia

“…We have very recently analyzed our data collected from the motor domain and found support for its potential role in the early developmental risk profile of a subgroup of children by detecting an early motor delay that is associated with language development and a delay in acquiring fluent reading skill (Viholainen et al, 2006).…”

Head Lag in Infancy: What Is It Telling Us?

“…The ability to right the head is essential to achieving postural control. Preterm infants have a heightened risk for motor problems, and early postural control, related to head lag in pull-to-sit, can be an important predictor of developmental outcome (Samsom & de Groot, 2000;Viholainen et al, 2006). Persistent head lag beyond age 4 mo has been linked to poor outcomes (Flanagan, Landa, Bhat, & Bauman, 2012), but few studies have investigated head lag during the neonatal period (Barbosa, Campbell, Smith, & Berbaum, 2005;Karmel et al, 2010).…”