The Influence of Sports Participation on Sustained Attention in Children with Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

Cerebral palsy is a persistent disorder because of a nonprogressive pathological process that damaged the brain in the prenatal, perinatal or the early postnatal periods. The most characteristic signs of cerebral palsy are motor impairments. Cognitive impairments, like attention deficits, are also common in cerebral palsy. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether children with cerebral palsy have sustained attention deficits. The second aim was to investigate whether sports participation has a positive influence on sustained attention in children with cerebral palsy and in healthy children. 32 children with cerebral palsy were included, divided into two groups: a sporting group of 12 children and a non-sporting group of 20 children. Also a group of 42 healthy children was included. This group consisted of a sporting group of 22 children and a non-sporting group of 20 children. To measure sustained attention the Bourdon-Vos Test was used. The number of hits and the total time needed to complete the task were used to rate sustained attention. Results indicated that sustained attention is less well developed in children with cerebral palsy than in healthy children. There was no significant effect found of sports participation on sustained attention in children with cerebral palsy. There was also no significant effect found of sports participation on sustained attention in healthy children. In conclusion this study contributes to the research to attention in children with cerebral palsy. Despite that there was found no effect of sports participation on sustained attention in this study, future studies can possibly found this effect when working on the limitations of this study.