Eye-movement disorders and visual-perceptual impairment in diplegic children born preterm: a clinical evaluation

The visual-motor behaviour of 15 preterm diplegic children and 50 control c hildren (age range 4 to 7 sears) was recorded on video as they performed a visual-perceptual task (an adaptation of the Animal House subtest of the We chsler Preschool Primary Scale of Intelligence). The following parameters w ere analysed and scored: time to perform task; omissions; figure-colour ass ociation; sequence direction; sequential scanning order; accuracy of fittin g target; and number of anticipatory saccadic movements to next, target. Th e ability of the control children to perform the task improved significantl y with age, as measured by performance time, mistakes in sequence direction and scanning order, accuracy of target fitting, and number of anticipatory saccadic movements. The scores of children with diplegia were not related to age and were poorer overall than those of the control group. children wi th diplegia made significantly more mistakes of sequence direction and scan ning order, and significantly fewer anticipatory saccadic movements than th e control group. These results indicate that visual-perceptual impairment i n diplegic children born preterm is not attributable only to sensory visual loss and to fine manipulation difficulties but is also related to difficul ties in eye movements and in using anticipatory control to process informat ion.