Assessment of the Participation of the Children with a Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD)

Objective: Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) struggle with the activities of daily living which require motor coordination. In order to appreciate the impact of the DCD on the participation, several questionnaires for teachers and/or parents have been developed. The questionnaires differ in their structure and contents. This article aims to make a review of the existing DCD questionnaires. Method: A search of the available articles on the validation of DCD questionnaires was done during September 2014 and June 2015 on the following databases: Medline and Web of Science. The following combined keywords were introduced: developmental coordination disorder, activity and questionnaire. Only questionnaires or checklist for parents/caretakers and/or teachers of children with probable DCD were retained. Results: Six questionnaires were identified: the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 Checklist, the Revised Developmental Disorder Coordination Questionnaire, the DCD Daily Questionnaire, the Motor Observation Questionnaire for Teachers, and the Children Activity Scales for Parents and the Children Activity Scales for Teachers. The sensitivity is high (≥80) in two questionnaires: DCDdaily Q and MOQ-T, it tends to be low in the other questionnaires. The specificity is high (≥90) in three questionnaires: ChAS-T, ChAS-P and DCDdailyQ. The results for the DCDQ’07 in the different studies are divergent and inconclusive. Conclusion: The questionnaire which had the most reliable sensitivity and specificity is the DCDdailyQ. The DCDailyQ is currently the only questionnaire which has a good balance between the categories of items. It can identify children with and without DCD. In order to confirm this assumption, more cultural and psychometric validation is still needed

A parsimonious oscillatory model of handwriting

International audienceWe propose an oscillatory model that is theoretically parsimonious, empirically efficient and biologically plausible. Building on Hollerbach’s (Biol Cybern 39:139–156, 1981) model, our Parsimonious Oscillatory Model of Handwriting (POMH) overcomes the latter’s main shortcomings by making it possible to extract its parameters from the trace itself and by reinstating symmetry between the x and y coordinates. The benefit is a capacity to autonomously generate a smooth continuous trace that reproduces the dynamics of the handwriting movements through an extremely sparse model, whose efficiency matches that of other, more computationally expensive optimizing methods. Moreover, the model applies to 2D trajectories, irrespective of their shape, size, orientation and length. It is also independent of the endeffectors mobilized and of the writing direction

The development of haptic processing skills from childhood to adulthood by means of two-dimensional materials.

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Haptic-2D: A new haptic test battery assessing the tactual abilities of sighted and visually impaired children and adolescents with two-dimensional raised materials

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What do we really know about motor learning in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder?

International audienceThere is a general consensus that developmentalcoordination disorder (DCD) is characterized by impaired motor learning skills. However, actual studies of motor learningin DCD are scarce and, above all, inconsistent. The aims of the present study were therefore to explore the presumed presence a motor learning deficit among individuals with DCD and to provide a synopsis of the current literature on motor learning in DCD. We begin by defining DCD (etiology, neuropsychology, and brain bases), motor learning (measurement of learning, methods for promoting skill acquisition, scheduling,practice, retention, and feedback) and, of course, the link be-tween the two, focusing on the issue of a possible motor learning deficit in DCD. We then discuss dominant hypotheses andsuggest directions for future research in this domain, in thelight of research conducted thus far. Particular attention is paid throughout to guide the choice of intervention approaches

The role of motor memory in action selection and procedural learning: insights from children with typical and atypical development

International audienceMotor memory is the process by which humans can adopt both persistent and flexible motor behaviors. Persistence and flexibility can be assessed through the examination of the cooperation/competition between new and old motor routines in the motor memory repertoire. Two paradigms seem to be particularly relevant to examine this competition/cooperation. First, a manual search task for hidden objects, namely the C-not-B task, which allows examining how a motor routine may influence the selection of action in toddlers. The second paradigm is procedural learning, and more precisely the consolidation stage, which allows assessing how a previously learnt motor routine becomes resistant to subsequent programming or learning of a new competitive motor routine. The present article defends the idea that results of both paradigms give precious information to understand the evolution of motor routines in healthy children. Moreover, these findings echo some clinical observations in developmental neuropsychology, particularly in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder. Such studies suggest that the level of equilibrium between persistence and flexibility of motor routines is an index of the maturity of the motor system

Haptic Identification of Raised-Line Drawings by Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults: An Age-Related Skill (Short Paper)

Past research involving adult participants has consistently shown that the identification of raised- line drawings through haptics was challenging. In the present study, we used a developmental approach to assess whether this skill was related to age and haptic short-term memory capacity. To that end, we asked sighted children, adolescents, and young adults to identify raised-line drawings of common objects by touch. We also measured their haptic short-term memory capacity. Results showed that picture identification scores and memory spans both improved significantly with age. Interestingly, memory scores accounted significantly for the variability in picture identification scores. These findings suggest that identifying raised-line drawings through haptics is an age-related skill. Improvement in haptic short-term memory capacity may play a role in the development of that skill

Psychometrics and visual impairment : A new haptic test battery using 2D raised materials

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Psychometrics and visual impairment : A new haptic test battery using 2D raised materials

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