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Motor learning in children with spina bifida: Dissociation between performance level and acquisition rate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2004

KIM EDELSTEIN ,
MAUREEN DENNIS ,
KIM COPELAND ,
JON FREDERICK ,
DAVID FRANCIS ,
ROSS HETHERINGTON ,
MICHAEL E. BRANDT  and
JACK M. FLETCHER
KIM EDELSTEIN
Affiliation:
Brain and Behaviour Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada Department of Psychology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada
MAUREEN DENNIS
Affiliation:
Brain and Behaviour Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada Department of Psychology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
KIM COPELAND
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, Texas
JON FREDERICK
Affiliation:
Center for Computational Biomedicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
DAVID FRANCIS
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, Texas
ROSS HETHERINGTON
Affiliation:
Community Health and Knowledge Transfer, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
MICHAEL E. BRANDT
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, Texas Center for Computational Biomedicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
JACK M. FLETCHER
Affiliation:
Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
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Abstract

The cerebellum is part of a neural circuit involved in procedural motor learning. We examined how congenital cerebellar malformations affect mirror drawing performance, a procedural learning task that involves learning to trace the outline of a star while looking at the reflection of the star in a mirror. Participants were 88 children with spina bifida myelomeningocele, a neural tube defect that results in lesions of the spinal cord, dysmorphology of the cerebellum, and requires shunt treatment for hydrocephalus, and 35 typically developing controls. Participants completed 10 trials in the morning and 10 trials following a 3-hr delay. Although children with spina bifida myelomeningocele were initially slower at tracing and made more errors than controls, all participants improved their performance of the task, as demonstrated by increased speed and accuracy across trials. Moreover, degree of cerebellar dysmorphology was not correlated with level of performance, rate of acquisition, or retention of mirror drawing. The results suggest that congenital cerebellar dysmorphology in spina bifida does not impair motor skill learning as measured by acquisition and retention of the mirror drawing task. (JINS, 2004, 10, 877–887.)

Keywords

CerebellumHydrocephalusMirror drawingMagnetic resonance imaging
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 10 , Issue 6 , October 2004 , pp. 877 - 887
Copyright
© 2004 The International Neuropsychological Society

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