Altered Cerebella

Just an interesting thought on an article a friend shared on fb:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-08/uocd-rfa082411.php

It states that a researcher found that the brains of children with Down Syndrome have "altered cerebella." The cerebellum is primarily responsible for balance and coordination which are obviously two things with which our children have difficulty. The researcher goes on to state that he studied the eye movements of the children and discovered there is an incoordination in the eye movements as well. He ultimately concluded that there was a disturbance in the "optikinetic" link, but then somehow decided this was related to early Alzheimer markers and a drug trial for Alzheimer medication.

In all of the research the Institutes have done, they stress over again how all children with a brain injury have difficulty with their visual pathways, most notably near point convergence which develops at the midbrain level somewhere around 5 months when the baby begins to crawl and creep; hence our focus on creeping, crawling and cross patterning. If the visual pathway can not accurately assess distance, accomodation, convergent focus etc., how might that faulty information affect the development of the cerebellum? Structure from function?

Anecdotally, the main area of major response to our consistent patterning over the past two months has been coordination and balance. Again, I think these research findings are important, and I am certainly glad they are being done, but how in the world would a drug to slow the advance of alzheimer's affect positive changes in the brains of our children?