PERCEPTUAL MOTOR SKILL DISORDER : A RISKFACTOR FOR LEARNINGPROBLEMS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN

Background: Disorder of perceptusl motor skills (PMS) has been frequently reported in children withlearningproblems, the nature and relevance of disorder of PMS to learning disabilities are still poorlyunderstood. Studydesign and setting: A prospective longitudlinal study conducted on 195 second grade children at TaifCity. Aim of the work: To elucidate the relevance of disorder in PMS to theproblem oflearning disability. Subjects and methods: 195- secondgradechildrenwereassessedfor6 PMScoin sorting, hand dexterity, finger tapping, eye tracking, simplereaction time and hand stability at thebeginning of the academic year 2017-2018. Learning abilities were assessed by school records, teacher ratingand wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT) raw scores for readingspilling and arithmetic. At the end of theyear 2017-2018, children were looked for class repetition. Results: Subjects in the 1stquartile (good performance) and in the 4th quartile (poor performance) of the PMS were compared fordifference in learning parameters. Highly significant differences were observed in all learning parametersbetween both groups. Multiple regression analysis revealed that PMS accountedfor highly significant amount ofvariation in variances of all learning parameters. Follow-up revealedthatsubjectswithpoorperformanceinPMS had a significantly higher incidence of class repetition additionally, subjects with class repetition weresignificantly impaired in coin sorting, hand dexterity, and eyetracking. Conclusion: Someof the PMSweresignificant independent variables for academic learning abilities and predictor for future leaning problems.