Executive Difficulties in Developmental Coordination Disorder: Methodological Issues and Future Directions

Abstract

Motor skills and cognition have often been studied separately, but there is increasing understanding of the close relationship between these abilities over development. Motor coordination difficulties are central to the diagnosis of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), and recent evidence suggests that certain cognitive processes, known as 'executive functions', may be affected in individuals with this neurodevelopmental disorder. In this article, we review the research concerning executive functions in DCD, considering behavioural, neuroimaging and questionnaire studies of a range of processes. We highlight methodological issues relating to our current understanding of executive functioning difficulties in DCD, including problems with interpretation of results based on the tasks used. We suggest future directions for research in this area, including the relationship of laboratory research to interventions within 'real-world' contexts. IntroductionMotor skills are essential for activities of everyday life, and the ability to move around and to manipulate objects impacts our understanding of the world [1, 2]. This relationship between motor skills and cognition is mirrored in the close interrelation of the neural areas associated with motor function (e.g., the cerebellum) and cognitive control (e.g., the prefrontal cortex) [3,4]. However, motor and cognitive abilities are most often studied separately and, although motor difficulties are recorded in many neurodevelopmental disorders, the focus of psychological investigations in atypical development is usually cognition [3,5]. Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), on the other hand, provides an ideal opportunity to investigate the relationships between motor and cognitive abilities as it is a disorder diagnosed on the basis of difficulties in acquiring and executing motor skills. These difficulties are not due to a medical condition, and have an impact on activities of daily living and academic achievement [6]. In this article, we review the literature regarding a particular group of top-down cognitive processes, known as 'executive functions', in DCD, and consider the reciprocal relationship between these processes and motor impairments. In doing so, we highlight a number of methodological issues raised by these studies and consider future directions for this research, both in order to improve our own understanding of DCD and to increase educational and clinical professionals' awareness of the disorder and any associated difficulties in cognition.

Executive function in children with and without developmental coordination disorder: A comparative study

“…Children with DCD performed worse than TD children in all inhibitory control tasks (Go‐No‐Go App and Hayling Part B tests), similar to previous studies (Leonard & Hill, ; Mandich, Buckolz, & Polatajko, , ; Michel, Roethlisberger, Neuenschwander, & Roebers, ; Querne et al, ). The singular contribution of the present study showed that the differences between the DCD and TD groups occurred in the inhibition tasks with motor and also with verbal responses.…”

Executive functions in children with developmental coordination disorder: a 2‐year follow‐up study

“…Third, our study focused on standardized and experimental measures of executive function, in which task demands were set by the experimenter and did not necessarily represent the demands of executive function tasks in everyday life. More ecologically valid measures of executive function assessing real‐life situations and ‘hot’ executive functions, including emotional and motivational aspects, might further contribute to understanding executive function difficulties associated with poor motor skills …”

“…Previous research has identified executive function deficits in children with DCD or those with motor difficulties (children with poor motor skills but no diagnosis; see Wilson et al and Leonard and Hill for recent reviews). However, this research is largely cross‐sectional.…”

Examining the cognitive profile of children with Developmental Coordination Disorder

“…ASD and ADHD have been linked with executive function difficulties and it is possible that the working memory difficulties identified in our DCD sample may be due to this. Certainly a recent review identified that children with DCD present with wide-ranging executive difficulties (Leonard & Hill, 2015). Similarly, attention problems have been reported in children with DCD (Dewey et al, 2002;Querne et al, 2008) and poor attention may influence working memory performance, as the ability to selectively process/attend to relevant information will inevitably influence how information is retained in working memory.…”