The effect of vision on walking in children with different levels of motor competency

Abstract

Background: Motor coordination problems of children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) have been frequently associated with poor visuospatial processing. Objective: The aim this study has been to investigate a role of the vision in the motor control of walking between typical developing children (TD) and children at risk of DCD (DCDR). Methods: Participants included 16 TD (mean age 9.1, SD 1.0 years), and 16 DCDR, (mean age 8.7, SD 0.8 years) who walked along a 10 meter walkway using the Optojump instrument to assess the spatio-temporal variables of the gait pattern in full vision (FV) and non-vision (NV) conditions. Data was analyzed in a two-way mixed-effect ANOVA (2 groups - TD vs. DCDR, 2 visual conditions - FV vs. NV) with repeated measurement on the last factor (p ≤ .05). Results: The results demonstrated that DCDR children walked slower and with shorter steps than their TD peers. Also, withdrawing the vision affects some parameters of the gait cycle including the stance-phase, single-support, load-response and pre-swing regardless of the level of motor coordination of the children. Conclusions: A higher dependency on visual information or impaired utilization of proprioceptive inputs for execution of simple walk in the stable environment were not confirmed in the children with motor difficulties.

Keywords

• walking
• vision
• coordination disorder
• children