Katerina Asonitou

Motor and Cognitive Performance Differences between Children with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD).

The current study adopts the PASS theory of information processing to investigate the probable differences in specific motor and cognitive abilities between children with and without developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Participants were 108 5- and 6-year-old preschoolers (54 children with DCD and 54 children without DCD). The Movement Assessment Battery for Children assessed motor function. Running speed and agility were measured using the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency. Finally, the Planning, Attention and Simultaneous Scales from the Das-Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System evaluated cognitive ability. Children with DCD differed significantly from those without DCD performing at a lower level on all motor and cognitive tasks. A correlation analysis revealed significant relationships between cognitive processes and motor skills. Simultaneous cognitive processing and manual dexterity were significantly correlated for both groups. Furthermore, a significant relationship was revealed between planning cognitive processing and balance for the non-DCD group. Thus, early assessment might identify specific cognitive-motor difficulties. Furthermore, early intervention might prevent some of the developmental comorbidities in the academic and everyday lives of children with movement difficulties.

Comparison of sport achievement orientation of male professional, amateur, and wheelchair basketball athletes.

To examine the differences in sport achievement orientation among 35 professional, 36 amateur, and 35 wheelchair basketball athletes, these men completed three subscales of Competitiveness, Win orientation, and Goal orientation of the 25-item Sport Orientation Questionnaire. A multivariate analysis of variance indicated significant differences among groups. Win orientation was the factor, through discriminant function analysis, that significantly separated the athletes into the three groups. The highest win score was obtained by the professional, followed by the amateur and wheelchair groups. Replication study is necessary to confirm the present findings.

COMPARISON OF SPORT ACHIEVEMENT ORIENTATION BETWEEN WHEELCHAIR AND ABLE-BODIED BASKETBALL ATHLETES

Differences in sport achievement orientations between 31 recreational wheelchair and 76 able-bodied basketball athletes were tested. Athletes from the New England region completed the three subscales of the Sport Orientation Questionnaire (competitiveness, win orientation, and goal orientation). Wheelchair athletes responded higher on the Competitiveness and Goal Orientation subscales. In discriminative function analysis competitiveness scores were the only significant discriminator between the two groups.

Cognitive process-based subtypes of developmental coordination disorder (DCD).

The purpose of the study was to identify the cognitive subtypes demonstrated by children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) using the Planning-Attention-Simultaneous-Successive Processing (PASS) theory and the Cognitive Assessment System (D-N CAS). Participants were 108 children aged 5- and 6-years old, 54 with DCD and 54 without DCD, all attending typical kindergartens. They were examined on 31 cognitive-motor variables. Hierarchical-agglomerative and iterative partitioning cluster analyses including 9 motor and 7 cognitive variables revealed the following six subtypes: o C1 = children at risk (having considerable difficulty with jumping and minor difficulty with manual dexterity and simultaneous coding); o C2 = children on the mean (all cognitive-motor scores close to the mean); o C3 = free from cognitive-motor problems (all scores above average); o C4 = manual dexterity, planning and simultaneous coding difficulties; o C5 = manual dexterity, dynamic balance, and planning difficulties; o C6 = generalized cognitive-motor dysfunction (all scores considerably below average). It is well known that DCD is a heterogeneous condition. However, whenever cognitive processes were lower than average, cognitive-motor relationship was evident in subgroups C1, C4, C5 and C6. Early identification of task-specific cognitive-motor difficulties may be essential for early educational intervention practices in order to anticipate and improve learning, academic and performing difficulties.

Cognitive Processes in Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder

The purpose of the chapter is to describe the application of PASS theory and the Cognitive Assessment System to the cognitive assessment of children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). The chapter begins with a description of the characteristics of DCD and the interrelation of motor and cognitive development in both typically and atypically developing populations. Then the chapter reviews four theoretical approaches and conceptual views primarily derived from the cognitive psychology literature: the knowledge-based approach to motor development, the information processing model, the dynamical systems theory, and the PASS theory. The chapter then provides a thorough and comprehensive review of research employing PASS theory and the CAS as diagnostic tools for children with DCD, and presents the identification of distinct cognitive process-based subtypes of DCD using clustering methods. We briefly outline the field of intervention with emphasis on the educational domain; and we propose a cognitive-motor approach to intervention to enhance cognitive as well as motor performance of children with DCD. Finally, we propose that a combination of the PASS and knowledge-based approach theories will be effective for identification, assessment, and designing of intervention for children with DCD.

Cross-Cultural Aspects: Exploring Motor Competence Among 7- to 8-Year-Old Children From Greece, Italy, and Norway:

Motor development is affected by maturation and growth but also influenced by the specific environmental and cultural context. Therefore, cross-cultural research can provide information about how different cultural contexts, lifestyles, and physical activity contexts can influence the process of developing motor competence. The purpose of this study was to evaluate aspects of motor competence among children from different cultural backgrounds. The sample of 463 children from 6 to 8 years consisting of 132 Greek children (52.3 % boys), 126 Italian children (53.9 % boys), and 205 Norwegian children (52.7) completed the Test of Motor Competence (TMC) including two fine motor tasks—Placing Bricks and Building Bricks—and two gross motor tasks—Heel to Toe Walking and Walking/Running in Slopes. The results indicate that the Norwegian children performed better in all tests; the differences were statistically significant in all four tasks compared with Italian children and in two tasks compared with the Greek children (Building Bricks and Heel to Toe Walking). Greek children performed significantly better than the Italians in two tasks: Placing Bricks and Heel to Toe Walking. Italian children were significantly faster than the Greek ones in one task: Walking/Running in Slopes. The differences in terms of levels of basic fine and gross motor skills between children from the different countries may be a consequence of both different physical activity contexts and cultural policies, attitudes, and habits toward movement.

Hierarchical Agglomerative Cluster Analysis as a Trial Method RevealingDevelopmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) Subtypes

Background: There is increasing evidence that children with DCD have been classified into distinguishable ‘subtypes’ mainly based on perceptual-motor, fine and gross motor skills. Previous research efforts define and describe in detail subgroups of DCD using the methods of cluster analysis. The hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis seems to be an effective statistical method to identify homogeneous subtypes in the developmental disorder literature. Methods: The present study investigated the nature of possible cognitive-motor profiles of DCD using clustering methods. Dependent variables were selected on the basis of the characteristics of children with DCD and the specific difficulties observed in cognitive- motor domain according to the DCD literature. For the purpose of the study we adopted “PASS” neurocognitive theory (Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, Successive) and the norm-referenced Cognitive Assessment System. Results: Based on this hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis six (6) statistical sub-groups emerged with number of participants ranged from 5-43 students with or without DCD. Internal and external validity of the clustering solution was controlled by different clustering methods (Wards method analysis, Complete Linkage method, Centroid method, K-Means iterative partitioning method and split-sample replication), as well as other parametric methods (MANOVA, ANOVA and discriminant analyses). Conclusions: Future research examining the impact of DCD classification is warranted and it could be apply for other developmental disorders. The impact of different DCD profiles may provide larger benefits for alternative and effective instructional methods and early intervention programs in order to avoid motor learning disabilities and low academic achievement.