Hand and Finger Coordination in Down Syndrome

David Patterson davepatt@eri.uchsc.edu &
Mark Latash mll11@psu.edu

Coping with poor motor coordination is arguably the most frequently encountered problem in everyday llife by persons with Down syndrome and other cognitive or developmental disabilities.

The cerebellum is a major structure within the CNS for which significant differences have been documented between persons with Down Syndrome and the typical population. The cerebellum has been assumed to play a central role in the formation of synergies (behavioral purposes of central organizations of sets of elements into task- or function-specific units), in both motor and non-motor domains. Therefore, project staff hypothesized that behavioral differences observed in persons with Down syndrome may be causally related to their deficit in the ability to form synergies.

Specific objectives of the project were:

• To document differences in synergy organization in persons with Down Syndrome in tasks including finger coordination during multi-finger force production and hand coordination during bimanual object manipulation, and
  
  
• To study the effects of 3-day practice on the indices of coordination during these tasks.