Neuromotor development and language processing in developmental dyspraxia:A follow-up case study

A longitudinal study of a child (MV) with developmental verbal dyspraxia wa s conducted to determine to what extent language development and motor perf ormance in this clinical diagnosis followed a similar course of maturation. Patient MV was observed for two years from the age of 5 years and 6 months . Initially, this young patient exhibited unintelligible and atypical speec h production (multiword utterances without consonants), delay in balance an d coordination, and impairments in rhythmic tasks; but she was otherwise de veloping normally with no intellectual impairment or behavioral disorder. M RI scans showed moderately enlarged ventricles, a thin, incompletely myelin ated corpus callosum and intact basal ganglia. Two years later, MV's perfor mance was nearly normal only in comprehension aspects of language. In contr ast, production aspects of language and speech and neuromotor development s howed very little improvement after two years. These observations first sug gest that development of receptive and expressive domains within language m ay be asynchronous, and that the progression of motor control of language a ppears to follow a parallel course to neuromotor development.