The Visual Perception of Cerebral Palsied Children

Visual–perceptual impairment in a random sample of children with cerebral palsy

“…For instance, Abercrombie and colleagues (1964) found, in line with our results, that children with right side hemiplegia were as severely impaired on the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception as children with diplegia, compared with children with motor impairment of peripheral origin. In contrast, Wendell (1960) found that children with right side hemiplegia did not differ from a matched control group on any of five visual perception tasks, while children with left side hemiplegia scored significantly lower than the right side group on two of the five tasks.…”

Visual Perceptual Deficits in Different Types of Cerebral Palsy

“…Children in the spastic bilateral (UL and LL as well as LL only) and left spastic unilateral groups, however, had significantly lower scores than children with right spastic unilateral CP 8 . These results confirmed those from studies by Skatvedt 25 as well as Wedell 26 who reported although both right and left spastic unilateral groups presented with VPI, the dominant area for visual perceptual processing in the right cerebral hemisphere resulted in those with left spastic unilateral CP having lower visual perceptual scores than those with right spastic unilateral CP 25,26 . Some early studies used assessment tools that required motor control that could have directly impacted on the results.…”

“…The more severe VPI in children with spastic subtypes of CP has been attributed to cortical damage where visual perceptual processing predominantly occurs 26 . Pueyo et al 28 confirmed the findings reported above in 2009 when they compared the visual perception of 23 participants with bilateral spastic CP and six with dyskinetic CP.…”

The Neurology of Cerebral Palsy

“…Others, particularly those with ataxia, are likely to have great difficulties in recognizing, orienting, and placing in order patterns such as letter shapes, and in reproducing them. These difficulties, which mav be termed 'visuo-spatial', have been increasingly recognized by teachers of cerebral palsied children (Taylor, 1959;Berko, 1954;Lord, 1937;Nelson, 1962;Nielsen, 1962;Prechtl, 1962;Wedell, 1960;Ingram, 1960).…”