Haptic form discrimination: a group comparison of normal children and children with previous developmental language disorders

The importance of the neurobiological basis of developmental language disor ders includes somatosensory modalities. Twenty-five children were diagnosed as having specific language-impairment at preschool age. All were examined with regard to their manual haptic form discrimination without visual cont rol at a mean age of 8.7 years +/- 7.1 months. This study group was compare d to age- and gender-matched normal children of equal nonverbal intelligenc e (control group). Haptic discrimination was measured with the Seguin formb oard on which the children were required to place ten geometrical forms in appropriate holes. Both groups differed significantly in their mean quantit ative performances in favor of the control group (P<0.05). The difference i n their mean performance and their mean discrimination times did not reach statistical significance. All results were not age-dependent. The control g roup on average performed significantly better with their left hands than t he study group (P<0.05). Qualitative analysis revealed a significant differ ence in haptic discrimination of the pointed forms and was probably caused by inadequate exploration procedures and/or cognitive representation defici ts. The results of the children with previous developmental language disord ers were interpreted as an expression of an impaired cerebral maturation.