Dual-Task Performance in Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD): Understanding Trade-offs and Their Implications for Training

Abstract

The aims of this review are to focus (a) on identifying the neural circuits that are involved by a cognitive task in relation to those that are involved during a simultaneous motor task in children with DCD, (b) to discuss cognition–action trade-offs across different dual tasks, and (c) on the possible training regimes to enhance cognitive performance to support motor function. This paper integrates results from neuroimaging and behavioral studies in typically developing and children with DCD. Evidence for disproportionate dual-task costs in developmental coordination disorder remains contradictory and inconclusive. Missing and or less efficient structural and functional connections between the fronto-parietal regions and the cerebellum in children with DCD provide support for the automatization deficit hypothesis, the internal modeling deficit hypothesis, as well as the mirror neuron hypothesis in explaining motor-cognitive trade-offs. The dual-task paradigm represents an important tool for investigation of underlying mechanisms of motor disorders on both the neuronal and behavioral levels. In addition to the widely discussed internal model deficit hypothesis and the automatization deficit model, the role of mirror neurons in hemispheric communication appears to be a promising approach in the explanation of dual task costs and of motor impairment in children with DCD. Successful interventions to promote motor and cognitive ability in children with DCD can only be designed based on knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of this motor disorder.