REPRESENTATIONAL GESTURES IN DEVELOPMENTAL COORDINATION DISORDER AND SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT - ERROR-TYPES AND THE RELIABILITY OF RATINGS

Gesture production was studied in children with developmental coordina tion disorder (DCD) and specific language impairment (SLI) in comparis on to normally developing age-matched and younger control children. Th e pattern of error production was investigated to characterize the pra xis skills seen in these two developmental disorders as well as to inf orm understanding of the aetiology of both DCD and SLI, Given the subj ective nature of the categorization of errors, a separate study was co nducted to investigate inter-rater reliability. Independent adult rate rs consistently used four out of fourteen error-types and for these fo ur, inter-rater reliability was found to be good. The type of errors m ade by children with DCD, SLI and the younger controls were very simil ar. The only difference between the groups was in the frequency with w hich errors were displayed, suggesting that the performance of the cli nical children might be an indicator of immature praxis development. I t is suggested that the inclusion of a younger control (similar to a ' 'motor match'') group is an important methodological device for invest igating the underlying nature of disorders such as DCD and SLI. (C) 19 98 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.