Effectiveness of Exercise Intervention on Inhibitory Response in Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder

Abstract

Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) have been demonstrated to show an impaired inhibitory response in reflexive shifts of attention. PURPOSE: To investigate the efficacy of soccer training on treating problems with the ventral attention network in children with DCD in an ecological setting. METHODS: Forty-two children aged 9-10 years old were screened using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children and divided into DCD (n=28) and typically developing (TD, n=14) groups. Children with DCD were then quasi-randomly assigned to either a DCD-training group who underwent a ten-week soccer training program with a frequency of five times a week or a DCD non-training group. Before and after training, the capacity of inhibitory response was examined with a visuospatial attention task with reflexive orienting for DCD and TD groups. RESULTS: RM ANOVA, with reaction time in congruent and incongruent conditions as the dependent variable, revealed a main effect of a time×group interaction (F2, 39= 3.42, p =.043, partial η2=0.15). Using the scores of the inhibitory response effect as dependent variables, the RM ANOVA also revealed a significant time×group interaction (F2, 39=4.13, p=.024, partial η2=0.18), indicating that the pre-training and post-training difference in the inhibitory response effect was significant only for the DCD-training group (t13=3.82, p=.002). After accounting for pre-training differences, ANCOVA on the strength of inhibitory response across the post-training period indicated a significant group difference in post-training behavioral performance (F2, 38=4.23, p=.021, partial η2=0.18), with no main effect between the DCD-training group and TD group (11.62 vs. 10.46 ms, p=.481). CONCLUSIONS: Soccer training resulted in significant improvement of cognitive function for the children with DCD, demonstrating that exercise intervention employed within the school setting can benefit the inhibitory response performance of children with DCD.