A Case-Controlled Investigation of Tactile Reactivity in Young Children with and without Global Developmental Delay

Assessing tactile function among children with intellectual, motor, and communication impairments remains a clinical challenge. A case control design was used to test whether children with global developmental delays (GDD; n = 20) would be more/less reactive to a modified quantitative sensory test (mQST) compared to controls (n = 20). Reactivity was indexed by blinded behavioral coding across vocal, facial, and gross motor responses during the mQST. On average the children with GDD were significantly more reactive than controls to most tactile sensory modalities including light touch (p = 0.034), pin prick (p = 0.008), cool (p = 0.039), pressure (p = 0.037), and repeated von Frey (p = 0.003). The results suggest the mQST approach was feasible and highlights the GDD sample was more reactive than controls to a range of stimuli.