Learning in preschool children with neurological disability

[...]impairment can be partly compensated for by ensuring that relevant features are made most salient, that the infant's or child's expectations are directed towards those features, and that they are assimilated before other demands are imposed. 7 In general, an enhanced knowledge base or appropriately directed expectation may compensate for degraded sensory signals. 7 Auditory signals which contain very rapidly changing characteristics and transients, such as are produced by consonants in speech, require encoding by specialised cortical systems, which appear to be specifically impaired in some children with language impairment. 7 8 This deficit may extend to the encoding of rapidly changing visual signals, but may possibly be ameliorated by extending stimulus duration. 8 Disordered sensory signalling might also be expected to affect the integration of sensory information across modalities. Imitational abilities for mouth and tongue movements are present neonatally, and imply a direct link between visual and motor percepts which may extend to a perception of affect. 2 The integration of sensory signals across modalities is demonstrable from 2-3 months. 9 The ability thus to link different aspects of an object or event is also likely to be important in the perception of temporal contingencies, and the perception of wider cues to the understanding of a situation. 1 Developmental coordination disorder is frequently associated with white matter damage following preterm birth.