Mechanisms that underlie coordination in children with developmental coordination disorder

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.