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. 2024 Apr 19;11(4):491.
doi: 10.3390/children11040491.

Motor Adaptation Deficits in Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder and/or Reading Disorder

Jérémy Danna  1 , Margaux Lê  2   3 , Jessica Tallet  4 , Jean-Michel Albaret  4 , Yves Chaix  4   5 , Stéphanie Ducrot  6 , Marianne Jover  2
Affiliations

Motor Adaptation Deficits in Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder and/or Reading Disorder

Jérémy Danna et al. Children (Basel). .

Abstract

Procedural learning has been mainly tested through motor sequence learning tasks in children with neurodevelopmental disorders, especially with isolated Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) and Reading Disorder (RD). Studies on motor adaptation are scarcer and more controversial. This study aimed to compare the performance of children with isolated and associated DCD and RD in a graphomotor adaptation task. In total, 23 children with RD, 16 children with DCD, 19 children with DCD-RD, and 21 typically developing (TD) children wrote trigrams both in the conventional (from left to right) and opposite (from right to left) writing directions. The results show that movement speed and accuracy were more impacted by the adaptation condition (opposite writing direction) in children with neurodevelopmental disorders than TD children. Our results also reveal that children with RD have less difficulty adapting their movement than children with DCD. Children with DCD-RD had the most difficulty, and analysis of their performance suggests a cumulative effect of the two neurodevelopmental disorders in motor adaptation.

Keywords: comorbidity; handwriting; neurodevelopmental disorders; procedural perceptual-motor learning.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The funders had no role in the design of this study; in the collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
In (A), presentation of the three trigrams to trace in the conventional or opposite writing direction and in (B), illustration of the spatial variables for the product analysis of the trace.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean percentage of failed trials according to the group. Error bars represent standard error. TD, typically developing group; RD, group with reading disorder; DCD, group with developmental coordination disorder; DCD-RD, group with associated reading disorder and developmental coordination disorder; Conv, conventional condition; Adapt, Adaptation condition.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mean value of the trigram variability index (A) and linearity (B) before Log transformation according to the group and condition. Error bars represent standard error. TD, typically developing group; RD, group with reading disorder; DCD, group with developmental coordination disorder; DCD-RD, group with associated reading disorder and developmental coordination disorder; Conv, conventional condition; Adapt, Adaptation condition.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Mean velocity (A) and movement disfluency (SNvpd) (B) before Log transformation according to the group and condition. Error bars represent standard error. TD, typically developing group; RD, group with reading disorder; DCD, group with developmental coordination disorder; DCD-RD, group with associated reading disorder and developmental coordination disorder; Conv, conventional condition; Adapt, Adaptation condition.
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