Motor, physical, and behavioural performance of 3- to 5-year-old children at risk of developmental coordination disorder: A longitudinal observational study.

Aim: To compare the motor, physical, and behavioural performance of children at risk of developmental coordination disorder (rDCD) and typically developing children at 3, 4, and 5 years of age.

Method: Following a longitudinal design, 35 mainly high-risk children identified as rDCD by a multidisciplinary team at a centre for developmental disabilities and 34 typically developing children participated. Children were assessed with the Movement Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition, Dutch/Belgian version (MABC-2-NL), Beery-Buktenica Test of Visual-Motor Integration (Beery VMI-6), Little Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire - Belgian version (LDCDQ-BE), Motor Skill Checklist, Functional Strength Measurement, body mass index, and Child Behavior Checklist. Linear mixed-model analyses compared performance between groups (rDCD and typically developing) and subgroups (confirmed and cleared DCD at 5 years).

Results: Children with rDCD scored significantly worse on all outcomes at every time point compared with typically developing children, except for visual perception. Performance on the MABC-2-NL, Beery VMI-6 subtest motor coordination, and LDCDQ-BE was also consistently below average for those in the rDCD group. Performance across time points was stable in the rDCD group, with only a significant improvement in LDCDQ-BE. Children not diagnosed with DCD (n = 5) were mostly similar in performance to the typically developing group.

Interpretation: Performance differences are present at 3 years in high-risk children at rDCD and tend to persist between 3 and 5 years.