DCD is a neurodevelopmental disorder.
(World Health Organization, 2022)DCD is rooted in the brain's structure as it develops.
Symptoms will most often first appear (onset) in the early developmental period (3-8 years old), but may be difficult to recognize before the age of 5.
Symptoms persist into adulthood in 50-70% of patients.
There are no true "cures" for DCD because the disorder is built into the brain's structure.
DCD is heavily rooted in genetics; heritability ranges from 0.44 to 0.80 (Mountford et al., 2021).
DCD is very common.
(World Health Organization, 2022)5-6% of school-aged children experience DCD.
An additional 10% may experience milder difficulties with motor skills which still impair social or academic functioning.
DCD is more common in males.
(World Health Organization, 2022)The ratio ranges from 2:1 to 7:1 depending on the study.
DCD can impact gross motor skill functioning, fine motor skill functioning, or both.
(World Health Organization, 2022)Gross motor skills involve large muscle movements.
Eg. sitting, crawling, walking, climbing or descending stairs, or playing with a ball.
Fine motor skills involve smaller, precise muscle movements.
Eg. holding tools/utensils, manipulating objects, drawing or writing, buttoning or lacing clothing, building puzzles or models, or notetaking.
DCD impacts motor praxis
Motor praxis is the ability to plan and execute unfamiliar motor actions in real time.
Poor praxis (dyspraxia) caused by DCD may result in the following:
Slow reaction time (Ke et al., 2019).
Difficulty with timing (Trainor et al., 2018)
Poor control of force (Smits-Engelsman et al., 2008).
Difficulty responding to changing or unpredictable situations and environments (Kashiwagi & Tamai, 2013).
Tendency towards inefficient movement (Kashiwagi & Tamai, 2013).
Difficulty with mental imagery (Adams et al., 2018).
Sensory processing related to the sensorimotor network may be impacted as well (Rinat et al., 2020; Mikami et al., 2021)
Including proprioception (Tseng et al., 2019).
That is, the sense of where one's body is positioned in space.
Young children may experience delays or impairment in developmental motor milestones.
Eg. sitting, crawling, or walking
Young children may experience delays or impairment in specific skills.
Eg. climbing or descending stairs, buttoning clothing, or tying shoelaces.
Children may experience delays or impairment in academic or play skills.
Eg. handwriting, playing with a ball, or building puzzles or models.
Adolescents and adults may experience delays or impairment in developing new skills.
Eg. driving, utilizing tools, or notetaking.
At all ages already acquired skills may tend to be relatively awkward or imprecise.
Experienced by 50% of patients with DCD.
ADHD is the most common disorder to coöccur alongside DCD.
Especially involving difficulty with fluency and articulation (eg. cluttering).
Cluttering involves speech which is rapid, erratic, and dysrhythmic, often including deletion or collapsing of syllables or omission of word endings.
Especially involving reading (dyslexia) or writing (dysgraphia).
Especially depressive disorders.
Reality: DCD is very common.
(World Health Organization, 2022)5-6% of school-aged children experience DCD, and an additional 10% may experience milder difficulties with motor skills which still impair social or academic functioning.
Reality: DCD is a lifelong condition.
(World Health Organization, 2022)50-70% of individuals who experience DCD will still have symptoms in adulthood.
Reality: While DCD symptoms are usually lifelong, training and therapy can help overcome the deficits in specific skills.
(World Health Organization, 2022)International Classification of Diseases, Eleventh Revision (ICD-11), World Health Organization (WHO) 2019/2021 https://icd.who.int/browse11. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 3.0 IGO licence (CC BY-ND 3.0 IGO).
Mountford, H. S., Hill, A., Barnett, A. L., & Newbury, D. F. (2021). Genome-Wide Association Study of Motor Coordination. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 15, 669902. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.669902
Rinat, S., Izadi-Najafabadi, S., & Zwicker, J. G. (2020). Children with developmental coordination disorder show altered functional connectivity compared to peers. NeuroImage. Clinical, 27, 102309. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2020.102309
Ke, L., Duan, W., Xue, Y., & Wang, Y. (2019). Developmental Coordination Disorder in Chinese Children Is Correlated With Cognitive Deficits. Frontiers in psychiatry, 10, 404. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00404
Trainor, L. J., Chang, A., Cairney, J., & Li, Y. C. (2018). Is auditory perceptual timing a core deficit of developmental coordination disorder?. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1423(1), 30–39. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13701
Smits-Engelsman, B. C., Westenberg, Y., & Duysens, J. (2008). Children with developmental coordination disorder are equally able to generate force but show more variability than typically developing children. Human movement science, 27(2), 296–309. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2008.02.005
Adams, I., Lust, J. M., & Steenbergen, B. (2018). Development of motor imagery ability in children with developmental coordination disorder - A goal-directed pointing task. British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953), 109(2), 187–203. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12274
Mikami, M., Hirota, T., Takahashi, M., Adachi, M., Saito, M., Koeda, S., Yoshida, K., Sakamoto, Y., Kato, S., Nakamura, K., & Yamada, J. (2021). Atypical Sensory Processing Profiles and Their Associations With Motor Problems In Preschoolers With Developmental Coordination Disorder. Child psychiatry and human development, 52(2), 311–320. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-020-01013-5
Tseng, Y. T., Tsai, C. L., Chen, F. C., & Konczak, J. (2019). Position Sense Dysfunction Affects Proximal and Distal Arm Joints in Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder. Journal of motor behavior, 51(1), 49–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222895.2017.1415200