Health-related physical fitness children with severe and moderate developmental coordination disorder

Abstract

The present study aims to examine physical fitness among children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) with varying degrees of severity (moderate and severe - mDCD, sDCD), and a group of children without DCD (wDCD), in the city of Manaus, Brazil. Initially, 180 children aged 6-10 years old participated in this study. After being diagnosed according to the DSM-IV-TR, 63 children were then divided into three groups (21 in each group). Health-related physical fitness was measured by means of the Fitnessgram, which included several core components, namely, body composition, muscle strength and endurance, flexibility, and cardiorespiratory resistance. The results showed no statistically significant differences between both groups in any of the assessed components. However, when analyzing the results of each component according to the criteria of the Fitnessgram, we observed that, regardless of the classification group, less than half of the children achieved scores that, according to the motor tests, would classify them as having a healthy fitness. Children with sDCD, mDCD and wDCD presented similar levels of health-related physical fitness, with an unsatisfactory performance for the component strength and muscular endurance. We therefore emphasize the importance of further research in this area, more particularly when it comes to following the development of motor skills and physical fitness in children with DCD, as well as the observation of the interactions between these variables over time.