Discrepancy between Motor and Cognitive Control in Adults with Intellectual Disabilities

Purpose: To investigate the relationship between motor and cognitive control in adults with intellectual disabilities (ID), focusing on two aspects, speed and accuracy.Method: Participants were 62 adults with ID aged 20 to 47 years. Their intelligence quotients (IQ) ranged from 13 to 61. Nine of the adults with ID had Down syndrome, and 8 of the adults had autism. We conducted three tasks: seal affixation task, tray-carrying task, and the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT). The seal affixation and tray-carrying tasks are motor tasks we devised that can separately measure the speed and accuracy of motor control. MFFT is a cognitive control task that can be used to evaluate cognitive styles, such as impulsive-reflective.Results: Adults with ID showed high motor accuracy and similar motor speed regardless of their MFFT performance. That is, discrepancies between motor and cognitive control existed in adults with ID.Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that some types of motor control problem may become unclear with growth. A longitudinal investigation focused on the motor skill development of persons with ID is therefore necessary

Motor Skills and Social Impairments in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the Japanese version of the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCDQ-J) and the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) in Japanese children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The participants were 19 children with ASD. The DCDQ-J is a parent questionnaire that can assess the degree of motor skill impairments, and the SRS assesses the severity of social impairments. To check the criterion-related validity of the DCDQ-J in children with ASD, the Japanese version of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 (MABC2-J) was also conducted. The total score of the DCDQ-J was significantly negatively correlated with the SRS score in the same way as the MABC2-J total score. These results indicate that the severity of social impairments in children with ASD is related not only to the child’s fundamental motor abilities but also to practical motor skills in everyday life