Motor Developmental Quotient Research Articles

Precocity of African Children

After reading Dr. Cobb's letter (Pediatrics, 21:867, 1958) concerning the "Precocity of African Children" as reported by Geben et al. (Pediatrics, 20:1055, 1957), I feel it essential to make some comment lest the readers of both the article and Dr. Cobb's letter are left with the impression that the accelerated development of Negro infants has been definitely established, and that there is a biological decline with increasing age. I feel this is particularly important since work in which I participated a number of years ago helped foster this concept in regard to gross motor behavior. It is true that in a group of Negro infants examined in New Haven in 1944 and 1945, the gross motor developmental quotients were found to be higher than the norms on which the Gesell Developmental Schedules were standardized.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FINDINGS IN PNEUMOENCEPHALOGRAMS AND CLINICAL BEHAVIOR

In order to determine what correlation exists between pneumoencephalographic and clinical behavioral findings, three independent evaluations were done with 50 patients. A radiologist and neurosurgeon each classified the roentgenograms according to the presence or absence of ventricular dilatation, abnormality of cortical marking and other abnormalities. A pediatrician did Gesell Developmental Examinations and made estimates of intellectual potential and neurologic status. There was no significant correlation of adaptive and gross motor developmental quotients with the pneumoencephalographic diagnoses. Neither was a statistically significant correlation found between the pneumoencephalographic findings and the presence or absence of mental retardation or certain neurologic abnormalities. Age at examination did not vary significantly with the clinical diagnosis but the mean age of patients with abnormal air studies was less than 1 year compared to approximately 2.5 years for those with normal pneumoencephalographic findings. It was concluded that it is not feasible to predict intellectual functioning on the basis of pneumoencephalographic findings alone, and that particular caution needs to be exercised in the roentgenographic interpretation if the child is less than 1 year old at the time of pneumoencephalography.