Value of pre-cue information for motor tasks performed by children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD)

Abstract

People commonly use pre-cue information to advance and reduce the information processing time required for a motor task (e.g., motor planning). However, children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) exhibit difficulties performing pre-cued goal-directed tasks. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the use of valid, neutral, and invalid pre-cue information for a goal-directed task. The participants were 11 children with DCD (mean age = 7.94 yrs.) and 11 typically developed (TD) age-and gender-matched children. The children with DCD exhibited delayed motor planning (e.g., reaction time) under the invalid condition compared to that of the TD children. The children with DCD used atypical strategies for motor execution and depended more on online corrections (e.g., increased deceleration time and movement units) to reach the target. These results suggest that children with DCD have difficulties handling unpredictable situations and that the use of atypical motor execution strategies did not affect movement time.

Behavioral and Neuroimaging Research on Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD): A Combined Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Recent Findings

“…Gonzalez et al's ( 2016 ) investigation of target-directed hand-eye coordination showed larger effects under cued conditions for eye ( d = 1.66, 95% CI = [0.78, 2.54]) and hand movement ( d = 1.22, 95% CI = [0.35, 2.09]) compared with uncued conditions ( d = 0.70, 95% CI = [−0.20, 1.59] and d = 0.62, 95% CI = [−0.27,1.51], respectively). All effects of target-directed pointing were non-significant but primarily of moderate magnitude; these results were all reported from one study (Gama et al, 2016 ). The only significant effect for manual stacking was reported under unimanual, hand movement conditions ( d = 1.40, 95% CI = [0.53, 2.27]), whereas bimanual conditions revealed moderate, but non-significant effects (Warlop et al, 2020a ).…”

“…There was a large overall effect (d = 0.87, 95% .51], respectively). All effects of target-directed pointing were non-significant but primarily of moderate magnitude; these results were all reported from one study (Gama et al, 2016). The only significant effect for manual stacking was reported under unimanual, hand movement conditions (d = 1.40, 95% CI = [0.53, 2.27]), whereas bimanual conditions revealed moderate, but non-significant effects (Warlop et al, 2020a).…”

“…Goal-directed reaching was assessed in four studies (two high quality, two moderate) (Gama et al, 2016 ; Gonzalez et al, 2016 ; Golenia et al, 2018 ; Warlop et al, 2020a ), manual tracking in one (Hsu et al, 2018 ), and force control in another (da Rocha Diz et al, 2018 ). There was a large overall effect ( d = 0.87, 95% CI [0.76, 0.98]).…”

“…Further, those with DCD were characterized by slower and more variable reaching and pointing movements, yet similar reaching errors to TD (Gama et al, 2016;Golenia et al, 2018) (see Section Reaching and Manual Control). More specifically, for reaching there was evidence of greater variability in DCD for those joint angles that do not affect finger/endpoint position-explored by Golenia et al (2018) using the uncontrolled manifold (UCM) method.…”

Reaction Times of Preschool Children on the Ruler Drop Test: A Cross-Sectional Study With Reference Values

“…A slow RT can result from various brain diseases, disorders and acquired conditions that affect white matter conduction, gray matter neurotransmission, and efficiency of cognitive neural networks (Klotz, Johnson, Wu, Isaacs, & Gilbert, 2012). Therefore, RT deficits have been well demonstrated in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Sjöwall, Roth, Lindqvist, & Thorell, 2013), developmental coordination disorder (DCD; Gama, Ferracioli, Hiraga, & Pellegrini, 2016; Johnston, Burns, Brauer, & Richardson, 2002), dyslexia (Kaltner & Jansen, 2014), and autism spectrum disorder (ASD; Herrero & Crocetta, 2015). Poor RT has also been associated with childhood obesity and high body mass index (BMI) values (Gentier et al., 2013; Skurvydas et al., 2009).…”