Protocole d’évaluation interdisciplinaire du regard, des fonctions perceptives et praxiques chez l’enfant

Abstract

This article provides a protocol for an interdisciplinary assessment of perception and praxis for children. Understanding the term “dyspraxia” was a key point to our approach, with the purpose of providing better help for the children we work with. Most of these children have cerebral palsy with relatively preserved intellectual capacities. First of all, we have elabored a theoretical model based on recent scientific data. This has served as a guideline in selecting standardized tests and developing the protocol. Which brought out in this way, multiple fields of perceptual functions and praxis. We will also discuss the testing of “vision” (central and peripheral vision, oculomotricity, eye-hand coordination, visual scanning and exploration strategies) which is essential in measuring perceptual and praxis functions. Then, a reflection on the assessment of visualspatial, visual-perceptual and visual-constructive processing is proposed. Finally, we will discuss ideomotor and ideatory aspects of the praxis functions as well as the relevance of assessing bucco-linguo-facial praxis functions in this context. The benefit of this protocol is the fact that it combines diverse scientific data and interdisciplinary clinical experience (neuropsychologist, occupational therapist, speech therapist and physiotherapist) to make a precise diagnosis for to target and efficient intervention.