The development of motor competency in normal and slightly mentally handicapped children

A study of the motor development and the corporal schema integration was carried out on 60 normal children aged between 6 and 10, and 40 slightly mentally handicapped children of 8 and 10 years of age. The deficiency at the level of manual rapidity is the most important element concerning the motive debility of mentally handicapped children. The tests show that there is no parallelism between the motive retardedness and the level of attainment of the corporal schema. In fact, the motor debility of 8 years old children is emphasized at the age of 10 with reference to normal children. On the other hand, if, at the age of 8, the mentally handicapped children have a lag of the corporal schema acquisition, these children have nearly overcome their retardedness at the age of 10. Therefore one can conclude that the motor retardedness of the slightly mentally handicapped children is not essentially due to a deficiency of the corporal schema integration.