THE MOTOR DEFICIT IN DOWN'S SYNDROME CHILDREN: A PROBLEM OF TIMING?

SUMMARY Down's Syndrome and non‐D S. children matched on MA and CA, performed continuous tracking and drawing tasks. Normal children performed the main tracking task. There were no differences between the groups on the spatial aspects of the tasks. On temporal components normal children were better on all measures. The D.S children were also poorer than retarded controls, showing more undershooting at comers, more problems in keeping up with the moving pattern, and were almost totally unable to continue the pattern without a model on the still moving paper following a five‐minute practice Session‐. Findings are discussed in terms of a specific motor programming deficit in D.S children.