The role of feedback on cognitive motor learning in children with cerebral palsy: A protocol

Evidence of provision of extrinsic feedback for improvement and retention of upper limb kinematics in children with cerebral palsy (CP) is scarce, especially following training interventions using virtual environments. Benefits of using a virtual environment can range from increasing the participant´s motivation to the ease of adapting extrinsic feedback for optimizing motor learning. In the proposed research, children with CP will be randomly allocated to one of three groups: no additional feedback, continuous feedback and faded feedback. For all groups, upper-limb motor training will be done in a virtual environment using the Jintronix virtual reality system. Motor improvements will be evaluated after an 8 hour training intervention and motor learning will be evaluated after one month. Transfer of motor gains to performance of a similar upper-limb task will also be used to assess learning. Findings from this research will provide crucial information on which frequency of feedback should be used to optimize motor learning and upper-limb rehabilitation in children with CP.