Studying Motor Praxis in Children With Varying Levels of Developmental Coordination Disorder

This research aimed to examine the gesture production ability of motor praxis among children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and children on the verge of developing DCD and compare it to typical children of the same age and younger.

For this reason, 91 boys (6-12 years old) were selected as sample size and divided into five groups (20 children with typical development, 14 children with DCD, 17 children on the verge of developing DCD, 20 typically-developed children aged 8-9 years, and 20 typically-developed children aged 6-7 years). To find the children with DCD, we employed the developmental coordination disorder questionnaire 7th edition (DCDQ-7) and the Bruininks–Oseretsky test of motor Proficiency. The Dewey gesture production test was performed to investigate motor praxis. Data analysis was performed using variance analysis and an independent t test.

Comparing the subjects’ performance in different conditions showed that their performance in transitive motor praxis was better than intransitive one (P<0.05). Also, the comparison of verbal command and imitation position showed that between the two DCD groups, the performance in the imitation movements was significantly better (P<0.05). While in the same age control group, no significant difference was seen between motor praxis in two conditions (P>0.05). The between-group comparisons showed that the performance of two DCD groups was disrupted compared to that of the control group at the same age. The performance of the DCD group compared to lower-age children with typical development (8-9 years old) was not different at the verbal command condition. In the imitation position condition, the DCD group performed significantly better than the lower-age children groups (P<0.05).

These results show that DCD subjects have developmental delays in performing motor praxis under verbal command.