Prospective case-control study «Diepeveen FB, van Dommelen P, Oudesluys-Murphy AM,...»1 including 253 children at the age of 4-11 years with diagnosed specific language impairment (SLI) were compared to 253 sex and age-matched children attending mainstream education by their reach of gross and fine motor milestones at the age norm of 15-36 months measured with Dutch Developmental Instrument. The measurements were performed at various visits to the well-child health care facility between the ages of 15 and 36 months.
The SLI children were attending the special-needs school for children with severe speech and language difficulties. This meant they had scored more than 1.5 standard deviation (SD) below the norm on two or more tests on at least two of four language aspects: auditory processing, speech production, grammatical abilities, and lexical-semantic abilities, and the disorder should not be due to hearing impairment or limited cognitive skills, as established with a validated test. SLI was diagnosed by a multidisciplinary team including an audiologist, a psychologist, a didactive specialist, and a speech therapist. Exclusion criteria for the study were for cases and controls adoption, cleft palate, and nonavailability of the well-child record.
The proportion of children not reaching the motor milestone at the age norm was significantly higher for three of the seven gross motor milestones in the group of children with SLI compared with the control group. A significant difference was found between both groups in the proportion failing to reach five of the six investigated fine motor milestones at the age norm. Compared to the control group, more children with SLI were late in reaching the following gross and fine motor milestones: 'Walks along', 'Walks alone', 'Throws ball without falling down', 'Walks well alone', 'Rides (tri) cycle', 'Puts cube in and out of a box', 'Builds tower of 2 cubes', 'Builds tower of 3 cubes', 'Imitates building a truck', 'Places 3 shapes in shape-box', and 'Imitates drawing vertical line'.
Cross-sectional study «Finlay JC, McPhillips M. Comorbid motor deficits i...»2 compared fine and gross motor abilities of 38 children with SLI with 36 age-matched children with typical language development (TL) and 35 age-matched children who had not been clinically identified as having SLI but exhibited low language abilities (LM). The measures were performed with 8 subtests of Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC-2) including ‘manual dexterity', ‘aiming and catching skills' and ‘static and dynamic balance'. Movement ABC-2 total score were for SLI group mean 83.9 (SD 11.8); LM group mean 98.9 (11.9); and TL group mean 99.4 (SD 10.4); p<0.001). The study found that children with SLI scored significantly lower on all subscales of the MABC-2 than did the low language and typical comparison groups.
In the study «Vukovic M, Vukovic I, Stojanovik V. Investigation ...»3 coordination and imitation abilities of 30 Serbian children with SLI aged between 4 to 7 were compared to 30 typically developing children (TD) matched for chronological age. The measurements included subtests from the McCarthy's Scales of Children's Abilities and the Test of Imitation of Movements. The McCarthy's subtests included coordination of legs e.g., walking backwards, skipping and coordination of arms e.g., catching, bouncing, and aiming a ball. Test of imitation subtests included imitation of simple movements and imitation of complex movements.
The results showed that the group of children with SLI had significantly more difficulties on the motor assessments compared to the control group: 1) coordination of legs: SLI mean 5.30 (SD 2.20) and TD Mean 10.87 (SD 1.61), respectively; 2) coordination of arms: SLI mean 6.40 (SD 2.46) and TD mean 11.40 (SD 4.63), respectively; 3) imitation of complex movements: SLI mean 5.93 (SD 2.92) and TD mean 12.57 (SD 2.44), respectively; 4) imitation of simple movements: SLI mean 12.90 (SD 5.09) and TD mean 18.98 (SD 1.02), respectively. The SLI group also showed delayed onset in the development of all motor skills under investigation in comparison to the typically developing group. Imitation of Complex Movements was the unique skill which predicted expressive vocabulary in both typically developing children and in children with SLI.
Study «Hill EL. Non-specific nature of specific language ...»4 reviewed literature on two databases (The PsychLit and Web of Science) from the years 1974-2000 on the relationship between specific language impairment (SLI) and motor coordination difficulties in children. English-language articles were included in which children in the study group had specific language impairment (SLI) without broad learning difficulties or pervasive developmental disorders. The results of children with SLI were compared to typically developing children or standardized test scores (Test of Motor Impairment or Movement ABC test). The children's ages ranged from 5 to 17 years.
The review indicated based on 19 studies co-occurrence of SLI and poor motor skills. A significant percentage of children with SLI scored at or below the 15th percentile, a cut-off often used to diagnose Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). The percentages of children with SLI falling below the 15th percentile in these studies ranged from 40% to 90%, significantly higher than the estimated 6% prevalence of DCD in the general population. A study 5 «Rintala P, Pienimäki K, Ahonen T ym. Effects of ps...»5 conducted in Finland reported that 71% of children with SLI aged 6–10 years had motor difficulties.