Learning and Transfer in Two Perceptual-Motor Skills in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

The present study examined perceptual-motor learning and its bilateral transfer in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which is well known as a genetically determined disorder in which muscles gradually degenerate and weaken across age. Mirror-tracing and rotary-pursuit tasks were used to measure perceptual-motor performance in 18 patients with and 28 without (control subjects) the disorder. The results of two experiments indicated that the patients showed learning basically similar to most of the controls. Relatively low performance of these patients seemed to be associated with their kinetic disability, not by deterioration of the mediating process in perceptual-motor coordination.