Children with disabilities, particularly with cerebral palsy (CP), generally have academic difficulties in reading, numeracy, speech and writing. As manual writing is a necessity in academic success, it seemed wise to evaluate graphic skills in children with CP in Cotonou.

This was a descriptive and analytic case-control study that ran from July to October 2015, involving 174 children in school, 58 of whom were CP matched with healthy children. The evaluation of the writing was made with P. Bedard's scale derived from that of AJURIAGUERRA. The drawing required was that of the man, so all the drawings having a human form are classified B and the others classified A.

There was a female predominance in CP with a sex ratio=0.81. Average school age of children with CP was 6.4 years and that of healthy children 3.4 years. Spastic diplegia was the most common form of CP in children (48.3%). In terms of writing, children with CP had more problems with all items of writing compared to healthy children (P<0.036). Writing was affected by the level of schooling of children with CP (P=0.006) and the posture (0.004). In Drawing, Average of points obtained by healthy children surpassed that obtained by children with CP. Drawing was influenced by muscle tone (P=0.0 04) and father's grade level (P=0.04).

It appears from this study that children with CP had difficulties with writing and drawing influenced by several factors whose correction would improve their graphics. Community-based rehabilitation (CBR) could be a welcome way of solving these problems in developing countries with fewer resources.