MOTOR-PERFORMANCE AND HANDEDNESS IN CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL LANGUAGE DISORDER

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is diagnosed when there is a fai lure of normal language development in a child with normal nonverbal i ntelligence. The discussion about additional or causal deficits is con troversial. In this study a computer-based motor performance series wi th a tapping, aiming and pegboard movement task and an additional pape r-pencil handedness test were applied to a group of children with DLD of the phonologic-syntactic subtype and with normal nonverbal intellig ence to describe the additional motor problems. Furthermore we examine d whether our DLD children showed a different handedness. Tapping and pegboard with both hands were significantly impaired in our DLD childr en. Overall our DLD children did not show a different handedness than the control group.