Discrepancies between Parent and Teacher Reports of Motor Competence in 5–10-Year-Old Children with and without Suspected Developmental Coordination Disorder

Abstract

Parents and teachers have knowledge of children’s daily motor performance yet may make different judgments about the levels of competence observed at home and school. The current study aimed to examine the discrepancies between parent and teacher reports using the Movement ABC-2 Checklist and the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCDQ) on children with and without suspected Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). The Movement ABC-2 Test was administered to 1276 children aged 5–10 years in China. The Movement ABC-2 Checklist and DCDQ were completed by both parents and teachers of all children. A total of 172 children achieving a score below the 15th percentile on the Movement ABC-2 Test were identified as children with suspected DCD. Both parents and teachers showed suitable agreement in judging children’s motor competence but low sensitivity in identifying children with DCD. Parent scores of children’s motor competence were more closely associated with test performance scores compared to teacher scores. Teachers tended to over-rate children’s motor competence. The motor difficulties identified by parents were associated with low Movement ABC-2 Test scores on Manual Dexterity and Balance components, while motor difficulties identified by teachers were associated with the Balance component only. The results demonstrated discrepancies between parent and teacher reports, suggesting the importance of using a range of measures to identify and describe motor difficulties in children.

Assessing the usefulness of the Little Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire-Chinese in Chinese preschoolers: a sex-and age-specific analysis

“…Although sex disparities may exist in nations with differing motor profiles between genders, such as in China ( Ke et al, 2020 ), our study found consistent results regarding reliability and validity of the LDCDQ-CH across both girls and boys. Previous research has shown that there is no gender difference in parental reports of their child’s motor activity, which are strongly associated with the motor competence of the children ( Ferreira et al, 2020 ; Ke et al, 2021 ). These findings align with and further support our own results.…”

Associations of preterm and early-term birth with suspected developmental coordination disorder: a national retrospective cohort study in children aged 3–10 years

“…However, the literature showed inconsistent results, with some studies showing that late preterm infants (34–36 gestational weeks) were not different from full-born infants in their cognition, motor, behavior, and socioemotional development across childhood [ 21 , 22 ]. More importantly, most of the previous studies used parent-filled subjective measurements to assess children’s motor performance, which may affect the accuracy of the results [ 23 ].…”