Generalized Motor Abilities and Timing Behavior in Children with Specific Language Impairment

Purpose: To examine whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) differ from normally developing peers in motor skills, especially those skills related to timing. Method: Standard measures of gross and fine motor development were obtained. Furthermore, finger and hand movements were recorded while children engaged in 4 different timing tasks, including tapping and drawing circles in time with a metronome or a visual target. Fourteen children with SLI (age 6 to 8 years) and 14 age-matched peers who were typically developing participated. Results: As expected, children with SLI showed poorer performance on a standardized test of gross and fine motor skill than did their normally developing peers. However, timing skill in the manual domain was equivalent to that seen in typically developing children. Conclusions: Consistent with earlier findings, relatively poor gross and fine motor performance is observed in children with SLI. Surprisingly, rhythmic timing is spared.