Visuomotor Skills, Executive Functions, and Academic Performance: A Comparative Analysis of Children With Developmental Coordination Disorder And Typical Development
Fabrício Bruno Cardoso, Keiko da Costa Oikawa, Vitor da Silva Loureiro, Filipe M Bonone, Washington Adolfo Battista, Aliny Carvalho Dematté, João Vítor Galo Esteves, Taís Carenzi, Alfred Sholl-Franco
Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is known for impairments in performing and learning
motor skills, and these impairments interfere with a child's daily life, school development, and leisure.
A child with DCD tends to have impairments in visual input called visuomotor adaptation and deficits
in inhibitory control, working memory, and planning, and these functions are related to executive
functions (EF). These impairments are studied and demonstrate that children with typical development
(TD) develop within the expected range for their age and improve throughout childhood. The objective
of this study was to conduct a comparative analysis between children with DCD and children with TD
to analyze and compare visuomotor skills, performance in the speed of sequential naming of common
stimuli, reading comprehension skills, and academic performance through the application of reliable
tests with a standardized norm. Children from 10 public schools in the northern region of Santa
Catarina, Brazil, were recruited, and 230 children were selected, of whom 98 met all four criteria for
the diagnosis of DCD, comprising 44 girls and 54 boys. The remaining 132 children were classified
as a control group, called the TD group, comprising 74 girls and 58 boys, who participated in the
application of the following tests: Nine Hole Peg Test (NHPT), which assesses visuomotor skills; Rapid
Automated Naming (RAN) test, which evaluates the speed of sequential naming of common stimuli;
Expository Text Reading Comprehension Assessment Test, which assesses comprehension skills; and a
test to evaluate academic performance with 20 questions. Through a statistical analysis of each test, our
results revealed differences between children with DCD and children with TD in visuomotor skills, rapid
automatized naming, reading comprehension, and academic performance.
