---

Background and Aim: Developmental coordination disorder is characterized by motor in-proficiency, resulting in significant impairments in social and academic functioning. We examine whether life style differences between elementary male students in two socio-economic different areas of Tehran may be reflected in developmental coordination disorder prevalence rates.

Materials and Methods: Two matched groups of 70 children were compared by use of BOTMP short form.

Results: The results show that the standard scores for children in the first area were significantly higher than the sixteenth area (P= 0.026).

Conclusion: Above findings suggest that different life styles may influence the motor skills and developmental coordination disorder prevalence in elementary children.

---

Back ground and aim: The development of body parts identification is parallel with the development of sensory motor. The proper evaluation of developmental is done in western countries, but they are not designed for different races, therefore we decide to survey about body part identification in Tehran.
Materials and Methods: This study performed on 90 children (46 girls and 44 boys) of 1-4years old in east of Tehran with cross sectional design. The first demographic questionnaire was completed by chief nursery and then the second section of questionnaire which was consisted of self body and doll body parts identification, filled in order to determine the number of parts pointed for obtaining of total grade survey on the children and dolls bodies.
Results: The findings showed that there were significant difference between three group of age (P<0.0001). There was no significant differences between two gender groups (boys and girls) in scores mean of self and doll bodies identification in all age groups (P>0.05). In final there was no significant difference between body identification on self body and doll body (P=0.12).
Conclusion: Children who are unable to point to body parts may be at risk for delays in language, cognition, and body scheme development and should be screened or evaluated further.

---

Back ground and aim: Specific language impairment is one of developmental language disorders in children which have no known etiology. Very few researches have been done about children with this type of disorder in Persian language. The aim of this study is to detect whether there are similarity in language abilities between SLI children and their MLU -m matched group or not.

 Materials and Methods: In this case- control study, the results of speech samples analysis, quotients for composite scores and standard scores of subtests of TOLD, from 12(7 boys and 5 girls) 5-7 years old children with SLI were compared with the results obtained from 12 younger normal (8 boys and 5 girls) children who were matched according to MLU- m with SLI children.

 Results: results show that there are no obvious differences in percent- point average use of words and morphemes in speech between two groups. While the two groups were adapted according to m-MLU, but we found that children with SLI are significantly lower than their MLU matched children in quotients for composite scores of spoken language, organization and semantic and in standard scores of sentence imitation, relational vocabulary and oral vocabulary subtests of TOLD.

Conclusion: Our findings demonstrated that some language skills in children with SLI are lower than their MLU matched peers. Results of this study were not provided evidence to support the hypothesis that children with similar m-MLU have similar language skills too. So it is necessary for clinician to consider it when they work with these children. 

---

Background and aim: The aim of this study was to compare the gross motor development between Low Birth Weight (LBW) infants and Normal Birth Weight infants (NBW) at the age of 8-12 months by using the Peabody Developmental Motor Scale-2 (PDMS-2).
Material and Methods: This was a non experimental and cross sectional study which was conducted on 18 LBW infants with the history of being in Aliasghar hospital and 14 infants with the history of normal birth weight as a control group. Gathering the information was done by completing Questioner and then by using the Peabody Developmental Motor Scale-2 (PDMS-2). Finally the scores of the motor quotients were analyzed by independent T test statistical method.
Results: There was a significant difference (p= 0.002) between the mean gross motor quotient of LBW (90.83) and NBW ( 106.78).
Conclusion: This study showed that LBW infants attain low scores of gross motor skills in comparison with normal weight infants. It indicated that the LBW infants are more prone to motor development difficulties.

---

Background and Aim: Auditory discrimination is one component of central auditory processing skills or auditory perception, that has an important role in acquisition and production of speech sounds. Auditory discrimination test is a tool for screening or diagnosis of auditory discrimination. The aim of this study is to investigate of auditory discrimination development process in 4-6 years old children in Semnan city. 

Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional survey was done on 200 normal 4-6 years old children in semnan city. Auditory discrimination skill was evaluated by Wepman auditory discrimination test (WADT) .The level of significancy in this study was 0.05.

 Results: Auditory discrimination skills based on percentage of 5 and 95 for 4 years old children were 20 and 36, 21.85 and 38 for 5 years old, 23.30 and 39.35 for 6 years old children. There was significant differences between 4 years old children with 5 and 6 years old children In auditory discrimination skill (P=0.003), but there  was no significant difference between 5 and 6 years old children(P=0.21). In addition, auditory discrimination test scores between boys and girls were not significant (P=0.34).

Conclusion: Results of this study showed that children ability in discrimination of sounds was increased with age.

---

Background and Aim: Developmental dysgraphia is a kind of learning disabilities in school students. Evaluation of the sensory and motor skills in hand  of these persons by appropriate, functional and real tests demonstrates that their fine and complex hand sensory-motor abilities are prerequisites of intervention planning.  Purdue Pegboard and Two-Point Discrimination Tests are used for evaluation of the hand motor and sensory skills respectively. This study was aimed to evaluate the test-retest reliability of these tests in students with developmental dysgraphia.

Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-analytic study hand sensory-motor skills were evaluated in 23 students with developmental dysgraphia (8-11 years) in Tabriz city by Purdue Pegboard and static and moving Two-Point Discrimination tests. Test-retest reliability of mentioned tests was done between and within examiners via intra-class correlation coefficient and independent t-test  was done for the comparison of the skills between girls and boys and right and left-handed students and Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated for the relationship between motor and sensory skills.

Results: Intra-class correlation coefficients of Purdue Pegboard, static and moving two-point discrimination tests for inter-session and intra-session reliability were ranged from 0.77 to 0.94 and 0.69 to 0.92 respectively. There was no significant relationship between motor and sensory skills (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Because of high reliability of these tests, it can be used them for evaluating the sensory-motor skills and intervention planning in students with developmental dysgraphia. Loss of relationship between motor and sensory skills can be related to the pathology of dysgraphia that needs further researches. 

---

 Background and Aim: There is an agreement on impression of environment on the development in different ways. The environment effect could be passive or active. The environment enrichment is a  passive method which is used to show the effect of  environment on the development during infancy.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of early perceptual-motor enrichment on later fine motor development process of infants.

Materials and Methods: Fifteen 5 to 8-months-old healthy infants participated randomly in this study. According to their age, participants were divided homogenously in two groups: training (n=8, ages=6.5±2) and non-training (n=8, ages=6.5±2). Training group had 36 training sessions(3 times in a week) for an hour at a perceptual-motor enrichment environment (involve vary manipulation and locomotion tools). After 36 training sessions, at the first assessment stage, infant fine motor skills were evaluated by Peabody motor development scale. Three months later, all infants were kept in similar and normal condition. At the later assessment stage, after this three months, infant fine motor skills were evaluated by same scale. Data were analyzed by mixed ANOVA2 (group) × (stage). 

Results: Results indicated that in fine motor age equivalent, main effect of group(F_(1,10)=10.53 , P=.009 ) and main effect of assessment stages(F_(1,10)=96.33 , P=.001) was significant. Interaction between groups and assessment stages (F_(1,10)=2.58 , P=.13)was  not significant. Also,  in fine motor scaled score, main effect of group(F_(1,10)=6.65, P=.02) and main effect of assessment stages (F_(1,10)=32.93 , P=.001) was significant. Interaction between groups and assessment stages (F_(1,10)=.24, P=.63)was  not significant.

Conclusion: Generally, results show that training and experience have positive effect on later   fine motor skills development of infant.   

---

Background and Aim: This study was conducted dueto the limited results of past studies in relation to postural control in children with developmental coordination disorders and the importance of postural control with the ability to integrate the vestibular, visual and somatosensory inputs. In this study the postural control of the children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) and their normal peers was compared under the reduced or the conflicted sensory input conditions.

Materials and Methods: Twenty two children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (16 males, 6 females with mean age of 7 years old and 9 months, SD 1 year and 5 months) and 19 children with normal motor development (13 males, 6 females, with mean age of 6 years and 11 months, SD 1 year and 1 month) were evaluated. Standing balance, sensory organization and motor control strategy were evaluated using the sensory organization test (SOT).

Result: The results showed that the children with DCD had poorer function than the normal children in the composite equilibrium (p&le; 0.001), visual ratios (p=0.005) and vestibular ration (p=0.002). There were no meaningful differences between groups in their average somatosensory ratio. Additionally, children with Developmental Coordination Disorder had lower motor strategy scores than the normal children when they were forced to depend on vestibular cues alone (p < 0.05). The children with Developmental Coordination Disorder had deficits in standing balance control in conditions that included reduced or conflicting sensory signals. The visual and vestibular systems tended to be more involved in contributing to the balance deficits than the somatosensory system. Moreover, children with Developmental Coordination Disorder were tended to use hip strategy excessively when forced to rely primarily on vestibular signals to maintain postural stability.

Conclusion: In order to improve the postural control in the patients, the rehabilitation protocols should focus on the sensory-motor deficits.

Keywords: Postural control, Postural stability, Developmental Coordination Disorder