Physical Effects of Cerebral Palsy in Children: Analytical Essay

Cerebral palsy is a condition often found in children that impairs their physical ability. The physical effects of Cerebral palsy mildly hinder a child's ability to move easily (cite). Some of the cognitive effects for children with Cerebral palsy include apprehension delayed learning and hindered verbal communication (cite 2). Children with Cerebral palsy use more energy just to walk and as a result, they naturally decrease their physical activities (cite). Maltais et al. (2016) identified how past research has found that children with Cerebral Palsy have a difficult time in school compared to children without disabilities. Maltais et al. (2016) also recognize how past research identifies children without disabilities do better in school when they participate in physical activities. Due to these two factors, Maltais et al. (2016) wanted to find if there was some correlation between exercise and learning abilities for children who have been diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy. The research was directed with the purpose of gaining knowledge about and answering the proposed research question: Does intense exercise affect the learning abilities of children with cerebral palsy in three different areas: apprehension, accuracy, and rate of processing (cite)?

Maltais et al. (2016) conducted their study using 16 children who had the ability to walk on their own without any means of assistance. There were two groups of eight for the purpose of their research. One group consisted of three girls and five boys; all of whom were diagnosed with cerebral palsy. The other group consisted of four boys and four girl; all of whom were considered to have normal development (cite). All of the children who participated in this study were 6-15 years old and were given consent to participate through parental approval. Maltais et al. (2016) found the participants with normal development through different types of advertising. The participants with Cerebral Palsy were found through private clinics. There were three different criteria for involvement in the study. One was that the children had to be competent in either French or English(cite). The second was that the children with Cerebral palsy had to be diagnosed with a specific type called spastic which means that they suffer from inflexible and twitchy muscles(cite). The children also needed to have the capability of running and walking without any type of assistance (cite). For the normal development group, children had to be clear of any type of learning disorders as well as any disablements in the heart, muscles, or skeletal regions (cite). If children contained any of the characteristics listed they were rejected from the study.

In this study, the researchers used a prospective experimental study design. The independent variable for this experiment is exercise and the dependent variables are the changes in apprehension, accuracy, and rate of processing (cite). In sum, will exercise cause apprehension, accuracy, and rate of processing to change in either or both the Cerebral palsy group and the group with normal development? In the exercise portion of the study, participants were evaluated using back-and-forth running tests (cite). Participants were required to either walk or run from one line to the next and back on a standard track. The children in the Cerebral Palsy group would be evaluated on a 10-meter trial whereas the children in the normal development group would be evaluated on a 20-meter trial (cite). The beginning rate for the Cerebral palsy group was 5.0 and for the normal development group 8.5 kilometers per hour. The rate intensified by 0.25 every minute for the Cerebral palsy group and 0.5 kilometers every minute for the normal development group (cite). The experiment came to a halt when the children were unable to maintain momentum. The data collected for these tests were based on the number of finished shuttles and the highest speed acquired (cite). During these exercises researchers consistently tracked participants' heart rates using exercise bands.

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Thirty minutes after exercise children in both groups were assessed in a ninety-minute period using a youth model picture test to measure learning ability after exercise (cite). During the test children were given a picture of an animal where the head and the body did not match( cite). Children were then asked to verbally state the name of the animal body out loud as fast as they could within a three-second time limit (cite). (figure 1) Answers were considered inconsistent if the child answered with the name of the animal head instead of the body if children used filler words before answering or corrected themselves (cite). Tests were repeated during three phases with twelve total assessments. Data was collected and analyzed through corresponding software. Maltais et al. (2016) assessed three different characteristics of learning abilities: retort time (speed), correct answers (accuracy), and intervening outcome (apprehension) (cite). For both groups, the results were evaluated using a dependent representative t-test (cite). The degree of relevance was placed at p < .05 with an outcome range of 0.2 (small), 0.5 (medium) and 0.8 (large) (cite).

Results were categorized by retort time (speed), correct answers (accuracy), and intervening outcome (apprehension) (cite). For retort time the Cerebral Palsy group showed great improvements with physical activity (cite). The normal developmental group also showed improvements however the outcome rate was trivial. (F3)(F2) For accuracy, the results showed an insubstantial difference before and after physical activity for children in both groups. For the intervening outcome (f4) vigorous physical activity in the Cerebral palsy group had displayed a considerable, moderate, and disadvantageous outcome while for children in the normal developmental group there was no substantial influence (cite).

Maltais et al. (2016) were able to identify the findings to their proposed research question: Does intense exercise affect the learning abilities of children with cerebral palsy in three different areas: apprehension, accuracy, and rate of processing (cite)? Maltais et al. (2016) sought out to discover new knowledge about the effects of physical activity on children with cerebral palsy. What they found was that average physical activity is beneficial while strenuous physical activity is not.

There was a couple of different limitation that were identified in the study. One was that the number of participants was extremely low. Another limitation was that researchers only included children with one type of cerebral palsy so this does not give a full scope of how exercise impacts all children with cerebral palsy. A major limitation that I was able to spot was that the study does not stae the duration of the study. It would have been helpful to know how long the participants were observed and how many times they repeated the testing if any. One strength that I was able to identify from the study was that all analysis of learning ability was done through computer software. This elevates the chances of error that could occur with human administration.