The Effect of 8 Weeks of Exergame Training on Motor Proficiency of Children and Adolescents With Typical Development and Those With Developmental Coordination Disorder

Abstract

Background and Aims Considering the motor and cognitive problems that arise following developmental coordination disorder (DCD), discovering new methods to deal with and reduce the adverse effects of this disorder is of particular importance. These people must promptly and effectively benefit from therapeutic and preventive interventions to improve their motor proficiency. This study aimed to investigate the effect of 8 weeks of exergame training on the motor proficiency of children and adolescents with typical development and those with developmental coordination disorders. Methods This quasi-experimental research employed a pretest-posttest and between-group approach. To conduct this research, 40 female students with an average age of 11.29-14.24 years were grouped into 4: healthy (10-12 years), healthy (13-15 years), DCD (10-12 years), and DCD (13-15 years). Students with suspected developmental coordination disorder were identified by their parents by completing the developmental coordination disorder questionnaire (DCD-Q-2). They were selected as the research sample of the DCD group using the MABC-2 test. Then, all subjects participated in the MABC-2 test in the pretest stage. Afterward, all groups played with the Nintendo console (4 games out of 12 games) for 8 weeks (24 Sessions), and each session lasted 20 minutes. After the intervention, all groups participated in the posttest phase, similar to the pretest. After confirming the normality of data distribution through the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, we examined the research hypotheses and analyzed the data using the paired t test, combined multivariate analysis of variance, and Bonferroni post hoc test at a significance level of P≤0.05. Results The paired t test results showed a significant difference in the subscales of balance, aiming and receiving, manual skill, and motor proficiency between the two age groups of 10-12 and 13-15 years in DCD subjects; however, no significant difference was observed in the posttest scores of 10-12 and 13-15 years old healthy students. Also, the independent t test results showed a significant difference between the scores of motor proficiency in the posttest of healthy and DCD individuals, and the mean scores of the healthy individuals were higher than those of DCD students. The combined multivariate analysis of variance supported only the significant effect of group (healthy and DCD) on MABC-2 subscales, and the impacts of age and age*group were not significant. Conclusion The results of the present study show that exergame exercises significantly improve motor proficiency in DCD individuals; however, these interventions could not compensate for the developmental delay of these children compared to typically developed children. These results may be related to the duration of the interventions and the age range at the start of the interventions. These differences may disappear if appropriate interventions are presented at a younger age and for a long time.