Sensorimotor function in preschool-aged children with expressive language disorder.
Preschoolers with mild expressive language disorder often can’t balance or thread beads—screen motor skills the same day you screen words.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team tested preschoolers who speak in short phrases but have no other delays.
They gave each child six motor games: bead threading, heel-to-toe walking, finger tapping, and three touch-and-guess tasks.
A control group of same-age peers did the same games so scores could be compared.
What they found
Almost every child with mild expressive language disorder scored lower on balance, fine motor, and touch tasks.
One in four of these kids landed in the “definite or borderline” motor-delay zone.
The gap was large enough that the authors say these children are seven times more likely to have motor trouble.
How this fits with other research
Levi et al. (2014) saw the same age group struggle to act out verbs like “jump” or “stir,” giving a near-perfect match to the motor findings here.
Ketcheson et al. (2018) looked at autistic preschoolers and also found motor delays, yet those kids moved around more, not less. The difference is measurement: Leah used wrist-worn activity trackers while Iti used lab tasks, so both can be true—delays exist but do not always cut daily movement.
Lloyd et al. (2013) and Galuska et al. (2006) extend the story upward, showing that motor gaps in autism stay flat or widen with age, hinting that early preschool screening in language-delayed kids could prevent the same long-term slide.
Why it matters
If a three-year-old talks in two-word phrases and trips over floor toys, do not wait. Run a quick motor checklist—beads, balance, finger game—right after the language probe. Adding two minutes to your assessment can flag a hidden delay and open the door to OT or motor goals before kindergarten.
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Join Free →Tape a short strip on the floor, hand the child six large beads and a shoelace, and count how many steps they can walk heel-to-toe and how long the stringing takes—note any wobble or drop; if either task is rocky, flag for OT consult.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
AIM: The aim of the study was to evaluate functional motor performance and haptic object recognition in 5-year-old children with mild expressive language disorder (ELD) in comparison with age- and gender-matched healthy children. METHODS: The subjects were classified by speech-language pathologist using The Reynell Developmental Language Scales III and Boehm Test of Basic Concepts: Preschool as children with mild ELD (n=29, incl. 23 boys and 6 girls) and children with typical language development as controls (n=29, incl. 23 boys and 6 girls). The children were examined for manual dexterity, ball skills, static and dynamic balance by Movement-ABC, haptic object recognition (HOR), hand-grip strength (HGS) and vertical jumping performance. RESULTS: Children with mild ELD demonstrated significantly higher scores (i.e., inferior performance) in all subtests of M-ABC (all p values <0.05), in haptic object recognition (p<0.01) and vertical jumping height (p<0.05) compared to controls. However, no statistically significant differences (p>0.05) emerged from HGS. Boys with mild ELD demonstrated higher results in impairment score (p<0.001), ball skills (p<0.01) and balance (p<0.01) of M-ABC, as well as in HOR (p<0.05). Girls with mild ELD showed higher impairment score (p<0.05) with lower percentile (p<0.05) in M-ABC, indicating inferior motor performance, and lower HGS for the non-dominant hand (p<0.05). Seven out of 29 (24.1%) children with mild ELD had definite or borderline motor difficulties, while only one child in control group (3.4%) demonstrated borderline motor difficulties. CONCLUSIONS: Children with mild expressive language disorder do not perform as well as controls in tests of functional motor skills, but their results in tests demanding maximal muscle force generation are in level with typically developing children. Boys and girls with mild ELD demonstrated higher impairment scores in M-ABC, indicating the need to follow their overall development more closely.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2014.03.007