[Disorders of vision and act in a child with spastic cerebral palsy]

A boy with spastic cerebral palsy, who had frequent apneic attacks during the neonatal period, showed developmental disorders; (1) cerebral poor eye sight, a disorder of visual directed attention, and associative visual agnosia (2) disorders of visuospatial perception and corporeal awareness, and (3) dyspraxia d'évolution (Stambak et al.). When the visual directed attention was completed at the age of 10 years, the integration of his cerebral higher functions was facilitated, except the following neuropsychological deficits; (1) visual line agnosia (apperceptive type) and (2) constructive apractognosia. These deficits were not compensated through the maturation of the central nervous system and through the contacts and interchanges with the outer world. MRI findings showed bilateral lesions of the white matter of occipital and parieto-occipital transitional regions, and the trunk and splenium of corpus callosum. Although this case is included in mental retardation, what differs is the fact that each "higher" function developed unevenly in this case unlike the ordinary mental retardation. In this report these disorders and deficits were discussed considering his developmental process of neuropsychological functions.