Introduction: Affecting 5-6% of children, developmental coordination disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by poor motor coordination and difficulty learning motor skills. Although quantitative studies have suggested that children with developmental coordination disorder experience reduced quality of life, no known qualitative studies have reported what daily life is like from their perspective. Method: Guided by an inductive realistic approach and using semi-structured, individual interviews, 13 children (8-12 years) were asked to describe what life is like in their own words. Three researchers coded interviews manually to identify relevant content. An experienced qualitative researcher conducted a second, in-depth thematic analysis using NVivo to identify patterns and themes. Findings: Two themes-milestones as millstones and the perils of printing-illuminated participants' challenges in completing everyday activities at home and at school. The third theme-more than a motor problem-revealed the social and emotional impact of these struggles and from being excluded from play. The fourth theme-coping strategies-described their efforts to be resilient. Conclusion: Parents, educators, physicians, and therapists working with children with developmental coordination disorder must recognize how their quality of life is affected by the physical and emotional toll of their efforts to participate successfully in daily activities.

The Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCDQ) is widely used as a brief parent questionnaire designed to screen for motor coordination in children, aged 5 to 15 years. There is no validated version of the DCDQ for the Central Europe, which could help for first catch of children with motor difficulties, whose amount has been seriously raised. In addition, the World Health Organization recommends the cross-cultural validation of existing instruments, for Loir costs and time consuming, and the availability of instruments in several languages enables therapists to use validated tools with non-English speaking clients. The aim of this study was to validate the DCDQ in the Czech culture in a population of Czech parents whose children were aged six to ten. Using data from 651 Czech parents of children (six to ten years; 7.8 ± 0.8 years), confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were used. The goodness-of-fit indices CFI = 0.94, TLI = 0.93, and RMSEA = 0.08 supported the original three-factor model of the DCDQ. In addition, the factor loadings of each question discovered in Czech DCDQ were non-significantly different from the original DCDQ. Furthermore, we also found strong between factor correlation; general coordination and control movement r = 0.87 probably measure the same underlying construct. Even though this is in conformity with original DCDQ structure, we suggest that responses in these two DCDQ factors might have violated the local independency and, therefore, could bias the final score. The generic reliability of the individual factors was acceptable and ranged from McDonald ω 0.83–0.88. Results from this study suggest that cross-validated version of the original DCDQ can be considered as sufficiently valid and reliable clinical screening tool for children who have coordination challenges for Czech children aged six to ten.