Blind evaluation of body reflexes and motor skills in learning disability.

Motor dysfunctions have been associated with learning disabilities in casual observation and systematic study. However, most prior work has concentrated solely on high-level skills and has been subject to observer bias. In this study, boys with learning disability were blindly compared with paired controls on measures of postural and equilibrium reflexes as well as skills. Learning-disabled children as a group showed significant deficits on all measures; a few, however, were totally without deficit. The implications of these findings for controversies about the role of motor dysfunction in learning disabilities are examined.