Postural Control of Anteroposterior and Mediolateral Sway in Children With Probable Developmental Coordination Disorder.

PURPOSE: To examine postural control of anteroposterior (AP) and mediolateral sway of children with probable developmental coordination disorder (pDCD) and children with typical development (TD). METHODS: Forty-eight children (24 in each group) aged 11 to 12 years performed an aiming task, maintaining a laser beam within targets placed in 2 locations (front/side). Precision was compromised primarily by the control of mediolateral sway for the front target and by the control of AP sway for the side target. The task was performed with large and small targets. RESULTS: In the side target condition, only (1) the TD group showed reduced AP sway in response to reduced target size, whereas the pDCD group increased AP sway, and (2) aiming performance for reduced target sizes deteriorated to a greater degree in the pDCD group than in the TD group. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest children with pDCD have specific deficits in controlling AP sway.

Perceived hole size, performance, and body movement during putting in children with and without probable developmental coordination disorder.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between perceived hole size (perception), performance, and body movement (action) in golf putting for children with probable developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and typically developing children (TDC). Forty-eight children (24 probable DCD, 24 TDC) performed putting in easy and hard conditions. Body movement was measured during putting, performance was measured as the distance between ball and hole, and perceived hole size was recorded using a Microsoft Paint drawing exercise 1 m away from the hole. The present results revealed that perceived hole size was positively related to putting performance, body movement was negatively associated with putting performance, and that there were negative correlations between body movement and perceived hole size. While children with probable DCD tended to perceive the hole as smaller, perform worse, and show more body movement, TDC exhibited the opposite. These findings help characterize the relationships between perception, performance, and action in children with probable DCD and TDC during golf putting.

Inhibitory response capacities of bilateral lower and upper extremities in children with developmental coordination disorder in endogenous and exogenous orienting modes.

This study was designed to investigate separately the inhibitory response capacity and the lateralization effect in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) in the endogenous and exogenous modes of orienting attention. Children with DCD on the lower extremities (DCD-LEs), along with age-matched controls, completed four tasks that involved various applications of asynchronous stimuli to the feet or hands at various intervals. The results demonstrated that children with DCD-LEs had a significantly longer reaction time than the controls for all tasks, and were not alert to the appearance of the target. However, they displayed a deficit in volitional shifts of attention (endogenous mode), but not in automatic dislocation of attention (exogenous mode), whenever they performed the tasks with either their lower or their upper-limbs-even 6 months after the initial study. These findings confirm the deficit in the inhibitory response capacity in terms of volitional movement of attention by children with DCD. Additionally, the negative effect of lateralization on the bilateral extremities was not present in children with DCD-LEs. Significantly differences in response ability were detected only between the dominant and non-dominant sides of upper-limbs, but not between the lower-limbs, suggesting a future avenue for further experimentation on bilateral extremities.

Relationship of visual perceptual deficit and motor impairment in children with developmental coordination disorder.

The study explored the relations of visual perceptual deficits and motor impairments in 60 children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (120.8 +/- 4.0 mo.) and 60 controls (121.0 +/- 5.3 mo.), who were matched by sex (29 boys and 31 girls) and age. They were separately assessed on fine and gross motor-dexterity tasks of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children, static balance and reaction time of lower extremities with eyes open or closed, and the Test of Visual-Perceptual Skills-Revised. Analysis showed the children with Developmental Coordination Disorder performed significantly worse than the control group, but only the visual perception and motor skills with timed responses were significantly correlated. When visual information was controlled, no significant correlation was noted, so motor-free visual perception appears to be significantly related to motor performance having a speed component in these children.