Developmental Coordination Disorder (Dyspraxia): An Overview of the State of the Art

A large number of school-aged children present with motor-based performance problems that have significant negative effects on their ability to participate fully in the daily activities of home, school, and play. These children have a neurodevelopmental disorder most commonly known as developmental coordination disorder (DCD). These children are frequently brought to the attention of the family doctor and referred to health care professionals in search of answers and services. Therapists treating these children have a large number of intervention approaches at their disposal. This paper presents an overview of these approaches and a review of the available evidence. The evidence for the older, deficit-oriented approaches remains inconclusive, at best; whereas the task-oriented approaches, seem to be better supported. While more work is needed to validate the use of the task-oriented approaches, the results suggest that a shift in perspective from a deficit-oriented to a task-oriented perspective would be appropriate.

Keywords:  DCD , clumsy children , evidence-based intervention , neurodevelopmental approaches , cognitive approaches , task-specific training