Correlation between Cognitive Abilities and Fine Motor Skills in Children with Hemiparetic Cerebral Palsy

Background: Children with hemiparetic cerebral palsy experience fine motor ability and cognitive deficits.
The development of fine motor skills is a necessary part of emotional, social, and cognitive growth.
Objective: The aim of the current work was to study the correlation between fine motor skills and cognitive abilities in children with hemiparetic cerebral palsy.
Subjects and methods: This cross-sectional study included a total of 85 children with spastic hemiplegia of both sexes and aged from 6 to 8 years, recruited from the Outpatient Clinic, Faculty of Physical Therapy, Cairo University. Fine motor abilities were assessed by Quality of Upper Extremity Skills Test (QUEST) whereas; Cognitive abilities were assessed using RehaCom system.
Results: The correlation between Fine motor skills and cognitive abilities measurements was weak positive significant correlation with reaction control (r = 0.260, p = 0.016), moderate positive significant correlation with working speed (r = 0.351, p = 0.001) and was strong positive significant correlation with working memory (r = 0.786, p = 0.001). The correlation between fine motor skills and other cognitive abilities was weak negative non-significant correlation with reaction speed (r = -0.110, p = 0.316) and with attention (r = -0.092, p = 0.403); and was weak positive non-significant correlation with neglect hemianopia (r = 0.124, p = 0.259) and with logical reasoning (r = 0.031, p = 0.778).
Conclusion: It could be concluded that there are correlations between fine motor skills and cognitive abilities in children with hemiparetic cerebral palsy.