Behavioral and Neuroimaging Research on Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD): A Combined Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Recent Findings

Aim: The neurocognitive basis of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD; or motor clumsiness) remains an issue of continued debate. This combined systematic review and meta-analysis provides a synthesis of recent experimental studies on the motor control, cognitive, and neural underpinnings of DCD.Methods: The review included all published work conducted since September 2016 and up to April 2021. One-hundred papers with a DCD-Control comparison were included, with 1,374 effect sizes entered into a multi-level meta-analysis.Results: The most profound deficits were shown in: voluntary gaze control during movement; cognitive-motor integration; practice-/context-dependent motor learning; internal modeling; more variable movement kinematics/kinetics; larger safety margins when locomoting, and atypical neural structure and function across sensori-motor and prefrontal regions.Interpretation: Taken together, these results on DCD suggest fundamental deficits in visual-motor mapping and cognitive-motor integration, and abnormal maturation of motor networks, but also areas of pragmatic compensation for motor control deficits. Implications for current theory, future research, and evidence-based practice are discussed.

Automated summary

This study provides a systematic review and meta-analysis of recent experimental studies on the motor control, cognitive, and neural basis of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). The findings suggest deficits in voluntary gaze control, cognitive-motor integration, motor learning, and abnormal neural structure and function in individuals with DCD. Compensatory mechanisms for motor control deficits were also identified.