Abstract
Motor timing tasks have been employed in studies of neurodevelopmental disorders such as developmental dyslexia and ADHD, where they provide an index of temporal processing ability. Investigations of these disorders have used different stimulus parameters within the motor timing tasks that are likely to affect performance measures. Here we assessed the effect of auditory and visual pacing stimuli on synchronised motor timing performance and its relationship with cognitive and behavioural predictors that are commonly used in the diagnosis of these highly prevalent developmental disorders. Twenty-one children (mean age 9.6 years) completed a finger tapping task in two stimulus conditions, together with additional psychometric measures. As anticipated, synchronisation to the beat (ISI 329 ms) was less accurate in the visually paced condition. Decomposition of timing variance indicated that this effect resulted from differences in the way that visual and auditory paced tasks are processed by central timekeeping and associated peripheral implementation systems. The ability to utilise an efficient processing strategy on the visual task correlated with both reading and sustained attention skills. Dissociations between these patterns of relationship across task modality suggest that not all timing tasks are equivalent.
Highlights
Motor timing in participants with developmental dyslexia and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has been investigated with behavioural tasks that require the production of motor responses in synchrony with external pacing stimuli [1,2]
Dyslexia and ADHD are both associated with subtle performance differences in the accuracy and precision of such responses compared to controls [3]
A risk factor related to timing functions might explain a wide array of the cognitive and behavioural symptoms, both those that are disorder-specific and those that overlap between disorder phenotypes
Summary
Motor timing in participants with developmental dyslexia and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has been investigated with behavioural tasks that require the production of motor responses in synchrony with external pacing stimuli [1,2]. ADHD and dyslexia are defined by independent sets of behavioural symptoms, recent evidence promotes a dimensional rather than a categorical view of developmental disorders and their associated symptoms [10]. This perspective accounts for the overlap between both the diagnostic prevalence and symptoms of these disorders and highlights evidence that common underlying mechanisms likely mediate general population variability on the constructs upon which clinical diagnoses are made (i.e., reading and attention variables) [9]
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