Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is a neurodivergent brain style that I, Emily (Psychologist), have spent an extensive amount of time researching to obtain a doctoral degree. My passion for understanding and supporting those who think, behave, and move differently comes from lived experience and a desire to improve and shape the trajectory of today's children. Why DCD? I was most intrigued by a particular mental process, executive functioning, which is challenging for neurodivergent brains and allows us to manage, organise, and regulate our thoughts, actions, and emotions. Those with DCD have difficulties in both executive functioning and predictive motor control (estimating the consequences of your movement). This led to researching how children with DCD learn to complete two tasks, i.e., dual-task in parallel, particularly how they completed a thinking (cognitive) and motor task (walking over an obstacle) simultaneously.
After many years of research and a few publications later, what did we find?
A small caveat - if you are as interested as me, please note that the deficit-focused and diagnostic language used across research articles is a requirement, not how we, as clinicians, now write from a neurodiversity-affirming paradigm. If research jargon interests you, please feel free to review the substantial documents (freely accessible) that took way too long to create. If your attention span enjoys a short, bite-size article, you are welcome to read below instead.
We found that those with DCD can perform a dual-task similarly to typically developing children under simple motor task demands (small obstacle). During increasingly challenging obstacle negotiation demands (high obstacle), they may adaptively compensate for their known difficulties in predictive motor control. Through this lens, children with DCD may be better accommodated during early motor learning, engagement in sports and daily living tasks. Accommodation may have tremendous implications for their physical, educational and social development trajectory. For example, suppose physical education teachers understood that children with DCD would benefit from adapted learning conditions that allowed clear instructions, effective attentional focus and multiple exposures. In that case, children with DCD may be able to develop their specific motor skills to a level that allows for greater participation and more positive self-efficacy. It is acknowledged that adapted teaching may rely on knowing that a child meets the criteria for DCD; however, it may be considered how coaching is approached for a wide variety of children and considering flexibility within the rules of successful motor performance. If we instead consider how we can make the environment more accepting of different ways to succeed, this can support the variety of children who approach motor tasks differently. In particular, if coaches, parents and educators understood the potential adaptive benefit of movement choices made by children with DCD and other children who may not have met the diagnostic criteria, these children may be supported to engage in sports, challenge themselves and participate in a way that best suits them, rather than their neurotypical peers. In sum, we take from this not if children with DCD can dual-task under dynamic task conditions but how they learn to do so safely and what society and research alike can do to allow for and accommodate differences. From Aldi's tagline, could their approach be “Good Different”? |
Whilst we are not a physiotherapy or occupational therapy service, we offer DCD screening alongside our neurodivergent brain style assessments (Autism/ADHD) as there is a high co-occurrence of these presentations. We also keenly provide psychoeducation on the topic to whoever may be interested, parents and teachers alike.
If you think your child may have fine-motor, gross-motor or motor coordination difficulties, please feel free to contact us.
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