Abstract
Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) fail to acquire adequate motor skill, yet surprisingly little is known about the oculomotor system in DCD. Successful completion of motor tasks is supported by accurate visual feedback. The purpose of this study was to determine whether any oculomotor differences can distinguish between children with and without a motor impairment. Using eye tracking technology, visual fixation, smooth pursuit, and pro‐ and anti‐saccade performance were assessed in 77 children that formed three groups: children with DCD (aged 7–10), chronologically age (CA) matched peers, and a motor‐match (MM) group (aged 4–7). Pursuit gain and response preparation in the pro‐ and anti‐saccade tasks were comparable across groups. Compared to age controls, children with DCD had deficits in maintaining engagement in the fixation and pursuit tasks, and made more anti‐saccade errors. The two typically developing groups performed similarly, except on the fast speed smooth pursuit and antisaccade tasks, where the CA group outperformed the younger MM group. The findings suggest that children with DCD have problems with saccadic inhibition and maintaining attention on a visual target. Developmental patterns were evident in the typically developing groups, suggesting that the pursuit system and cognitive control develop with age. This study adds to the literature by being the first to systematically identify specific oculomotor differences between children with and without a motor impairment. Further examination of oculomotor control may help to identify underlying processes contributing to DCD. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/NinXa2KlB4M. [Correction added on 27 January 2017, after first online publication: The video abstract link was added.]
Highlights
Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties with the acquisition and execution of motor skill (DSM-5, American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013); and has an estimated prevalence between 2 and 5% (Kirby & Sugden, 2007; Lingham, Hunt, Golding, Jongmans & Edmond, 2009)
Bonferroni-corrected comparisons revealed that children with DCD made significantly more saccades, had a lower average fixation duration, and spent less time on target that their chronologically age (CA) peers; the DCD vs. MM comparison and the CA vs. MM comparison revealed similar performance on each measure
The mean scores highlight that the MM group scored between the DCD and CA groups, the differences were not significant
Summary
Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties with the acquisition and execution of motor skill (DSM-5, American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013); and has an estimated prevalence between 2 and 5% (Kirby & Sugden, 2007; Lingham, Hunt, Golding, Jongmans & Edmond, 2009). Successful completion of such tasks is dependent on interactions between vision and proprioception and importantly requires accurate, up-to-date visual feedback to guide limb movements. Fundamental oculomotor behaviour includes fixations, saccades and smooth pursuit. Fixation orients a stationary target, whilst smooth pursuit is a directed tracking movement to maintain a moving target on the centre of the fovea (Karatekin, 2007). A rapid eye movement, aim to centre our fovea on the object of interest as we navigate through the environment. These fundamental oculomotor processes allow accurate visual feedback to enable successful motor activity
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