Frontiers in Psychology (Jan 2022)

Behavioral and Neuroimaging Research on Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD): A Combined Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Recent Findings

  • Emily Subara-Zukic,
  • Michael H. Cole,
  • Thomas B. McGuckian,
  • Bert Steenbergen,
  • Dido Green,
  • Dido Green,
  • Bouwien CM Smits-Engelsman,
  • Jessica M. Lust,
  • Reza Abdollahipour,
  • Erik Domellöf,
  • Frederik J. A. Deconinck,
  • Rainer Blank,
  • Rainer Blank,
  • Peter H. Wilson

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.809455
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13

Abstract

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AimThe neurocognitive basis of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD; or motor clumsiness) remains an issue of continued debate. This combined systematic review and meta-analysis provides a synthesis of recent experimental studies on the motor control, cognitive, and neural underpinnings of DCD.MethodsThe review included all published work conducted since September 2016 and up to April 2021. One-hundred papers with a DCD-Control comparison were included, with 1,374 effect sizes entered into a multi-level meta-analysis.ResultsThe most profound deficits were shown in: voluntary gaze control during movement; cognitive-motor integration; practice-/context-dependent motor learning; internal modeling; more variable movement kinematics/kinetics; larger safety margins when locomoting, and atypical neural structure and function across sensori-motor and prefrontal regions.InterpretationTaken together, these results on DCD suggest fundamental deficits in visual-motor mapping and cognitive-motor integration, and abnormal maturation of motor networks, but also areas of pragmatic compensation for motor control deficits. Implications for current theory, future research, and evidence-based practice are discussed.Systematic Review RegistrationPROSPERO, identifier: CRD42020185444.

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