MOTOR AFFORDANCES IN HOME ENVIRONMENT OF CHILDREN WITH MICROCEPHALY AND ITS RELATION WITH COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE.
Microcephaly. Cognition. Motor skills. Child development
Microcephaly is a congenital malformation in which the cephalic perimeter is less than two standard deviations or more of the expected mean for age and sex, due to inadequate brain development. It is accompanied by motor and cognitive changes that vary according to the degree of brain involvement. Recent studies point to the home environment as a strong influencer of child development, understood as the triggering agent of behaviors and actions. Therefore, it is suggested that a home environment rich in opportunities for motor stimulation has a positive impact on the future motor and cognitive performance of children who are early exposed to these stimulus. According to these informations, the objective in this research is to evaluate motor affordances in home environment of children with microcephaly and its relation with cognitive performance. This is a quantitative, epidemiological and analytical approach. The sample consisted of 30 children with microcephaly, between 18 and 42 months of age, and their families, who were invited to participate in the study through active search. To assess motor affordances and cognitive performance, it was used the instruments Affordances in the Home Environment for Motor Development - Infant Scale (AHEMD-IS) and the cognitive scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development III (BSITD-III), respectively. It was observed that the majority of the children evaluated (73.33%) lived in homes with low motor affordances, with average of 8.47 ± 1.72 points in the total standardized AHEMD score and that all children were classified with varying cognitive performance from extremely low to borderline, with about 86.67% of them presenting 55 points in the BSITD-III Composite Score. Statistically significant differences (p-value = 0.003) were also found between motor affordances and cognitive performance. Therefore, it is concluded that the majority of children with microcephaly presented severe cognitive impairment and few opportunities for motor stimulation in their homes. In addition, it is suggested that the home environment rich in motor affordances favors the cognitive development of children with microcephaly.