Information Processing Deficits Associated with Developmental Coordination Disorder: A Meta‐analysis of Research Findings

TLDR

The study performed a meta‑analysis to identify information‑processing factors characterizing children with Developmental Coordination Disorder. The analysis incorporated 50 studies comprising 374 effect sizes from 983 DCD and 987 control children. Children with DCD show a mild overall information‑processing deficit, with the most pronounced weakness in visual‑spatial processing and smaller deficits in kinaesthetic and cross‑modal domains, supporting a link between visual perceptual problems and motor coordination difficulties.

Abstract

A meta‐analysis was conducted to identify information processing factors that characterise children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). A total of 50 studies yielded 374 effect sizes based on 983 DCD and 987 control children. A mild generalised performance deficit was indicated, since motor‐impaired children were inferior on almost all measures of information processing. There were, however, several areas where their deficiencies were more pronounced. The greatest deficiency was in visual‐spatial processing. This was evident regardless of whether or not the tasks involved a motor component. Most other deficiencies were in the small‐to‐moderate range and included kinaesthetic and cross‐modal processing. The findings support the notion that perceptual problems, particularly in the visual modality, are associated with difficulties in motor coordination.