Body Representation in Children with Cerebral Palsy

Recent research was published in Brain Sciences about body representation in children with cerebral palsy. The researchers explored Body Semantics, Body Structural Representation and Body Schema 33 children with cerebral palsy compared to 103 typically developing children.

What is Body Representation?

In this study the researchers defined body representation as three parts:

Body Schema – input from sensory-motor information and it is fundamental to motor planning and execution.

Body Structural Representation – a topographic map of the different body parts.

Body Semantics – a conceptual and linguistic representation of the body.

Di Vita, A., Cinelli, M. C., Raimo, S., Boccia, M., Buratin, S., Gentili, P., … & Ruggeri, F. (2020). Body Representations in Children with Cerebral Palsy. Brain Sciences, 10(8), 490.

Each of the three different body representations are supported by a wide network of brain areas.

Results of the Study

Following data analysis the researchers determined that:

  • 63.64% of children with cerebral palsy showed a very poor performance in body representation processing.
  • children with cerebral palsy showed alterations in different body representations during specific developmental stages.
  • all of the children (cerebral palsy and typically developing) performances did not differ between 5 to 7 years old.
  • 8 to 12 year old children with cerebral palsy showed deficits in the Body Structural Representation and Body Schema but not in Body Semantics.

The researchers concluded that it is important to consider the overall development (including language, visuo-spatial and mental imagery skills) of cognitive domains when investigating body representation in children with cerebral palsy. Deficits in body representation can severely affect functional independence because of the role of body representation in motor planning and motor actions.

Reference

Di Vita, A., Cinelli, M. C., Raimo, S., Boccia, M., Buratin, S., Gentili, P., … & Ruggeri, F. (2020). Body Representations in Children with Cerebral Palsy. Brain Sciences10(8), 490. Full text here.

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