Mechanisms That Underlie Coordination in Children With Developmental Coordination Disorder

Abstract

The authors examined potential mechanisms underlying motor coordination in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Because children with DCD experience difficulty processing visual, auditory, and vibrotactile information, the authors explored patterns of choice reaction time (RT) in young (6-7 years) and older (9-10 years) children with and without DCD by using a compatibility-incompatibility paradigm and different sensory modalities. Young children responded more slowly than older children to visual, auditory, and vibrotactile stimuli. Children with DCD took longer than typical children to process visual and vibrotactile stimuli under more complex stimulus-response mappings. Young children with DCD responded more slowly than typical children to visual and vibrotactile information under incompatible conditions. Children with DCD responded faster than unaffected children to auditory stimuli. The results suggest that there is a developmental nature in the processing of visual and auditory input and imply that the vibrotactile sensory modality may be key to the motor coordination difficulties of children with DCD.

Auditory and visual information do not affect self-paced bilateral finger tapping in children with DCD

“…If inertia did influence finger tapping, adults would adopt a slower frequency based on increased moments of inertia, as observed during self-paced walking (Holt, Ratcliffe, & Jeng, 1999). The finding that the TD and DCD groups did not differ indicates that the slow motor performance often reported in DCD children (O'Brien, Williams, Bundy, Lyons, & Mittal, 2008; Raynor, 1998) does not apply to self-paced bilateral finger tapping. This suggests that deficits seen in performance are not due to a slowing of the movement.…”

Motor coordination and visual information processing in high school students at risk of developmental coordination disorder: Two year follow-up study

“…Kromě reakční doby se jako užitečný ukazatel schopnosti zpracovat informaci jeví intraindividuální variabilita doby reakce, zvláště u jedinců s poruchami neurálního vývoje (Dykiert, Der, Starr, & Deary, 2012;Russell, Oades, Tannock, Killeen, Auerbach, Johansen, & Sagvolden, 2006). Některé studie uvedly pomalejší motorickou reakci na zrakové podněty u prepubertálních dětí s DCD (Henderson, Rose, & Henderson, 1992;O'Brien, Williams, Bundy, Lyons, & Mittal, 2008;Raynor, 1998;Smyth, 1991) a dospělých s DCD (Cousins & Smyth, 2003) ve srovnání s jejich vrstevníky s normálním vývojem motoriky. Nicméně nejsou dosud žádné poznatky o spojení mezi zhoršenou motorickou koordinací a úrovní zpracování zrakových informací u adolescentů.…”

Effects of Lycra Body Suit Orthosis on a Child With Developmental Coordination Disorder

“…The MABC-2 is a widely used tool designed to assess movement skills in manual dexterity, ball skills, and balance 7,8,11 ; CO consists of the following items: muscle tone, proprioception, asymmetrical (ATNR) and symmetrical (STNR) tonic neck reflex, co-contraction, shoulder and pelvic stability, visual perception, and visual convergence and divergence. These items were assessed using a 3-point nonstandardized subjective scale ranging from 1 to 3, in which 1 denotes significant deficiency; 2, mild/ moderate deficiency; and 3, normal.…”

“…4,5 It is well documented that children with DCD have problems with proprioception, poor physical fitness, balance, coordination, abnormal reflexes, associated movements, visual perception, and motor planning. 7 Clinical observation (CO) is a widely adopted nonstandardized but clinically useful checklist of items used in the clinical setting to detect areas of difficulty and help identify underlying problems contributing to coordination and/or perception deficits. 9 Deficiency of proprioception has an adverse effect upon planning, organizing, and performing motor tasks, thereby negatively affecting coordination.…”