Deficits in the endogenous control of covert visuospatial attention in children with developmental coordination disorder

Abstract

Deficits in the covert orienting of visuospatial attention have been reported in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Using two new versions of the covert orienting of visuospatial attention task (COVAT), the study presented here sought to investigate how generalised deficits are in this domain by using longer time intervals between cue and imperative stimulus. Twenty children with DCD and 20 controls were tested on two different COVATs with the interval between cue and peripheral imperative stimulus (or stimulus onset asynchrony, SOA) of 150 and 850 ms presented in a random sequence: the first used peripheral cues and no probability information (exogenous mode) and the second used central cues and an 80% probability that imperative stimuli would appear at the cued location (endogenous mode). Results showed that the time course of covert orienting to peripheral cues was normal in both groups. For central cues, however, children with DCD were more disadvantaged by invalid cues compared with controls, regardless of SOA; this finding was consistent with a deficit in the disengage operation of directing covert attention. These results confirm and extend our earlier finding that impairments in the endogenous control of covert visuospatial attention exist in children with DCD. PsycINFO classification: 2820; 2330; 2346; 3250