The efficacy of Le Bon Depart and Sensory Integration treatment for children with developmental coordination disorder: a randomized study with six single cases

Objective: Evaluation of the efficacy of Le Bon Depart (LBD) treatment and Sensory integration (SI) treatment on motor performance of children with de velopmental coordination disorder. Design: A single subject design with multiple baseline and alternating trea tments. Order of treatment and length of phase were randomized. Measurement s were blinded. Setting: Department of Occupational Therapy at the Academic Hospital Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Subjects: Five boys and one girl with developmental coordination disorder ( age: 6.0-8.1 years). Interventions: Baseline condition, Le Bon Depart treatment and Sensory inte gration treatment. Main outcome measures: The Movement ABC, Praxis Tests, a rhythm test and vi sual analogue scales. With the exception of the Praxis Tests, lower scores indicate better performance. Results: During both treatments, the performance on the Movement ABC ((x) o ver bar = 7.21) and the scores on the visual analogue scales ((x) over bar = 46.64) were significantly better than in the baseline (Movement ABC(basel ine): (x) over bar = 17.38; visual analogue scales(baseline): (x) over bar = 68.18). After treatment 2, performance on the Praxis Tests and scores on the visual analogue scales were significantly better than after treatment 1 (Praxis Tests: 113.54 versus 104.68; visual analogue scales: 34.74 versus 58.54). All six children performed better on the Movement ABC during treatm ent as compared to the baseline. Le Bon Depart led to significant improveme nt on all dependent variables, Sensory Integration on the visual analogue s cales only. The improvements after Le Bon Depart were larger than the impro vements after Sensory Integration treatment. On the rhythm test this differ ence was significant: LED led to an improvement of 43.01 points, while the improvement after SI was 17.59 points (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Motor performance of children with developmental coordination d isorder improved significantly on all dependent variables after the combina tion of treatments. Le Bon Depart led to more improvement than Sensory Inte gration. LED appears to be a valuable treatment method for children with de velopmental coordination disorder.