Developmental coordination disorder
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Developmental coordination disorder is the term used for the movement learning difficulties associated with learning, planning, organising and carrying out actions needed for performing everyday tasks.
Developmental coordination disorder if often associated with the child becoming frustrated, feeling bad about themselves, losing motivation, withdrawing and experiencing anxiety.
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[edit] Definitions
The Leeds Consensus Statement describes developmental coordination disorder (DCD) as being evident “when there is a marked impairment in the performance of motor skills. The marked impairment has a significant, negative impact on activities of daily living – such as dressing, feeding, riding a bicycle – and/or on academic achievement such as through poor handwriting skills. Core aspects of the disorder include difficulties with gross and/or fine motor skills, which may be apparent in locomotion, agility, manual dexterity, complex skills (e.g. ball games) and /or balance.”
For example, where a child who exhibits clumsy, uncoordinated, or awkward behaviour, obviously experiences marked impairment in mastering gross motor coordination (for example: where crawling, walking, balancing, catching a ball, or bumping into people) and/or fine motor coordination (for example: doing up a button, cutting with scissors, tying a shoelace), then the condition can be described as DCD.
The DSM IV includes the following criteria for diagnosing DCD
- The child’s ability to perform everyday activities is “substantially below that expected given the person's chronological age and measured intelligence”.
- The motor impairment “significantly interferes with academic achievement or activities of daily living.
- The movement difficulties are not due to some medical condition such as cerebral palsy or muscle disorders.
[edit] Other terms
The term "developmental dyspraxia" is commonly used by parents and teachers as an alternative for the term DCD. However, it should be remembered that the term DCD is accepted technical term used by researchers and health service providers in most countries
DAMP is the acronym for "disorders of attention, movement and perception". It is sometimes used as a diagnosis when a child has a mixture of significant attention difficulties associated with movement and perceptual difficulties.
[edit] What causes DCD
In most children the cause of DCD is not known. The child usually has no history of damage to the brain, before or after birth. There may be some history of other members of the family being described as “clumsy” or having poor coordination.
In some children, there is a history of prematurity with possible injury to the visuomotor areas of the brain.
DCD frequently co-occurs with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD), specific language impairment and Attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
[edit] Long term outcomes
DCD is a lifelong condition. Although some children’s coordination improves as they get older, many will continue to have problems with coordination into adulthood. Many children with DCD also develop emotional problems, poor sel estemm and anxiety as they get older, although it is unclear whether this is primary or secondary to the effect of movement difficulties on participation in school, leisure and sporting activities. Missiuna 2003,Sigurdsson et al 2003,
If a child avoids physical activity and participation in sporting and recreational activities, they are also at risk of obesity in later adolescence
[edit] References
MISSIUNA, C. (2003) Childhood motor impairment is associated with male anxiety at 11 and 16 years. Evid Based Ment Health, 6, 18.
SIGURDSSON, E., VAN OS, J. & FOMBONNE, E. (2002) Are impaired childhood motor skills a risk factor for adolescent anxiety? Results from the 1958 U.K. birth cohort and the National Child Development Study. Am J Psychiatry, 159, 1044-6.
[edit] Useful sites
Centre for Childhood Disability Research (Canchild) Well researched information on all aspects of DCD
Leeds Consensus Statement(2006)on Developmental Coordination Disorder. Includes reports on a series of seminars given and attended by the world's experts on DCD
Skills for Action - a site with practical ideas for training movement and postural skills.
[edit] Support groups
Support groups provide useful information as well as support for children, their parents and teachers.
The Highland DCD Support Group website has some good information on DCD and the services available in the Scotland.
The Dyspraxia Support Group of New Zealand has some good information and links to other sites. This organisation approaches dyspraxia (DCD) from a sensory integration perspective and therefore the explanations given for the underlying deficits, difficulties and intervention approaches for dyspraxia (DCD) are biased towards this particular theoretical perspective.
The Dyspraxia Foundation of the UK also has a large amount of information about the difficulties experienced by children and adults with DCD /dyspraxia, with information about how and where to get help for people living in the UK.
[edit] Categories
categories: special education
