Verbal Self-Guidance as a Treatment Approach for Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder: A Systematic Replication Study

Abstract

Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) experience many occupational performance difficulties in all areas of daily living. For the most part, research has failed to identify an effective treatment approach for these children. Verbal self-guidance (VSG), a new approach, first explored by Wilcox and Polatajko (1993), appears to have good potential in helping children with DCD become competent in the occupations of their choice. The purpose of this study was to carry out a systematic replication of the first VSG study to determine if a different therapist could achieve similar results. Repeating the VSG procedure with four different children, using a single case study design, a different therapist was able to replicate the earlier findings. This provides further evidence of the potential of VSG as an effective approach for enabling children with DCD to surmount their motor challenges.