The effect of graded craft activities on visuomotor integration in an inpatient child psychiatry population.

The effectiveness of a graded series of craft activities on improving visuomotor skills was tested with an inpatient child psychiatry population. A standardized test of visuomotor integration served as a pretest and posttest to compare two nonconcurrent groups in the same setting. The inpatient program was the same for both groups, except that the treatment group (n = 33) participated in a graded craft sequence, while the control group (n = 24) did not. The frequency and degree of improvement were significantly greater in the treatment group. The degree of improvement in both groups was significantly related to age, IQ, and diagnosis of affective disorder, but not to sex, psychotropic medication, number of treatment sessions, or other diagnoses, including conduct disorder and attention deficit disorder. Mean age and IQ did not differ significantly between the two groups. The study tentatively supports a graded crafts program as a means for the improvement of visuomotor skills, but suggests that further research be done with matched groups.