COGNITIVE AND MOTOR DEVELOPMENT OF TWIN CHILDREN WITH MENTAL DISEASE

Abstract

The childhood is a stage of primordial life for the development of a human being, under the cognitive, psychological, biologic and motor aspects, for in this period the main maturations in the organism take place, suffering a direct influence of the environment, especially in twins that live together. Children with mental disease present an intellectual functioning significatively under the average, that is usually diagnosed during the childhood or adolescence. Objectives: evaluate and compare the cognitive and motor development of twin children with mental disease. Methodology: This research sample was made of two monozygotic female children with mental disease, who are eleven years and four months old, students at a fundamental special school. The motor evaluation used Motor Development Scale tests - EDM (Rosa Neto, 2002) and the cognitive evaluation used subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence scale for children WISC III (Wechsler, 2002) and interview. Results and conclusions: The motor development level of children was “very low” (QMG under 69). The estimated IQ of both children was deficit (68). There was no big difference in the motor and cognitive development between the pair, It was clear the direct relation between motor skills and cognition, both fundamental in the global children's development.