Citation

Krombholz H. Psychol. Erzieh. Unterr. 2012; 59(1): 1-20.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012)

DOI

10.2378/peu2012.art01d

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Disorders in motor development represent a significant impairment for the child, limiting both his/her movements and scope of action and also social activities. Movement disorders in children which are not attributable to somatic causes, constraints of sensory abilities or cognitive skills, are named "developmental coordination disorders (DCD)". The study presented attempts to answer some questions about the Motor development of children with developmental coordination disorders. Over 650 children attending kindergartens in Munich participated in the study. The proportion of children with developmental coordination disorders was about 7.5 percent (boys 8.2, girls 6.8) according to DCD-10 criteria. The development of 366 children, 186 boys and 180 girls, was investigated on the basis of physical characteristics, fitness, fine-motor skills and cognitive achievements during a longitudinal study over 20 months with three assessments. The mean age of the children at the beginning of the study was 54 months (s = 7.3). Compared to normal children (N = 316) DCD children (N = 50) were overweight, they were inferior in motor and cognitive performance, were delayed in their acquisition of motor skills such as swimming or riding a bicycle, and participated less frequently in provision offered by sports clubs. Contrary to past findings, which reported boys suffering more frequently than girls from developmental coordination disorders, only small gender-related differences were found.

Language: de