Child neuropsychology : a journal on normal and abnormal development in childhood and adolescence | 2021
Is there a relation between visual motor integration and academic achievement in school-aged children with and without ADHD?
Abstract
Visual-motor integration, motor coordination, and visual perception are associated with academic achievement in early school-aged children; however, our understanding of these associations in older school-aged children and children with neurodevelopmental disorders is limited. A well-characterized, clinically evaluated sample of 39 children with and without ADHD ages 8-13 (M =\xa010.07, SD\xa0=\xa01.56; 14 girls; 67.5% White/non-Hispanic) were administered standardized academic and visual-motor integration tests. Results: Backward entry regression analyses that initially included age, sex, socioeconomic status, ADHD symptoms, comorbidities, and IQ revealed that better visual perception uniquely predicted better-developed reading (β\xa0=\xa0.38) and math skills (β\xa0=\xa0.21; both p <\xa0.03), whereas better motor coordination was associated with better reading (β\xa0=\xa0.25), writing (β\xa0=\xa0.50), and math skills (β\xa0=\xa0.21 all p <\xa0.05). The integration of visual perception and motor coordination processes was uniquely associated only with math skills (β\xa0=\xa0.28; p =\xa0.007). Children with ADHD exhibited significantly lower visual-motor integration (d =\xa01.16) and potentially motor coordination (d =\xa00.51), but did not differ from Non-ADHD children in terms of visual perception (d =\xa00.03). These findings extend prior evidence from younger, neurotypical samples, and indicate that underdeveloped visual-motor integration and/or its subcomponents (visual perception and motor coordination) reflect unique risk factors for academic underachievement in school-aged children s math, reading, and written language skills.