Abstract
Children with developmental disabilities such as attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity and dyslexia are often found to have “soft signs” on neurological examination. These “soft signs” are believed to represent abnormal persistence of findings that would be normal at a younger age. This concept of delayed maturation implies that there is a normal maturational sequence for development of these skills. There is very little quantitative data describing normal neurological maturation in school-age children, however. Such normative data would be essential for a meaningful interpretation of “soft signs.” Age-specific normal maturational sequences will be presented for the following neurological tasks: face-hand test, finger differentiation, finger identification, right-left identification, crossed commands, tandem walking, balancing on one foot, hopping on one foot, absence of overflow, finger to thumb and several types of rapid alternating movements. For each task the age at which 25%, 50%, 75% and 90% of normal children can accomplish it will be shown. These data have been organized into a chart, similar to the Denver Developmental Screening Test, on which clinicians can relate an individual child's performance to these age-specific norms. This chart should be useful in future quantitative studies of the maturational delay hypothesis in developmentally disabled children.
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Coulter, D., Goldblum, R. 1667 QUANTITATIVE MEASUREMENT OF NORMAL NEUROLOGICAL MATURATION IN SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN. Pediatr Res 19, 388 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198504000-01691
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198504000-01691
