Key words: paediatric neurorehabilitation, motor learning, practice order, contextual interference, robotic devices, pilot study

"Contextual Interference – The Challenging Way Towards Evidence In Paediatric Neurorehabilitation"

This research aimed to assess whether children with brain lesions would profit more from practicing different motor tasks in blocked order (i.e. repeating one task several times before switching to the next task) or in random order (practicing the different tasks randomly). In literature, 27 studies were found assessing typically developing children and one assessing children with cerebral palsy. All the studies were of low quality. The researcher planned and conducted a pilot study aiming to evaluate blocked versus random order practice by using a robotic device (an exoskeleton) that can be used to train and measure upper limb function in children. Testing the robotic assessments for their reliability resulted in one parameter measuring movement fluency that was reliable enough for using it in our study. In the pilot study ten predefined criteria were assessed and showed that conducting a future main trial with this procedure would not be feasible.

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