MOTOR PROBLEMS IN CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL COORDINATION DISORDER -REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Occupational therapists frequently work with children with development al coordination disorder (DCD) in hopes of enhancing their occupationa l performance. There is debate among researchers and health care profe ssionals about whether the motor coordination problems experienced by children with DCD have a physiological basis or whether they are the r esult of a developmental delay. Even among researchers who agree that these difficulties are of physiological origin, there is a lack of con sensus as to whether these motor problems are multisensory or unisenso ry. This article focuses on the physiological explanation, presents a review of the literature on the possible physiological origins of moto r coordination problems in children with DCD, and shows that the curre nt literature on the physiological basis of DCD requires more empirica l evidence to substantiate either multisensory or unisensory theories of motor dysfunction in children with DCD. The debate over the nature of motor problems in children with DCD has two implications for occupa tional therapists: that there is no one way to treat these children an d that the cause of the difficulty varies from child to child.