The Overlooked Disorder: (Un)awareness of Developmental Coordination Disorder Across Clinical Professions

Objectives

Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is a common condition with core difficulties in motor skills. Recent research has identified links between DCD symptoms and negative outcomes for mental and physical health. Despite this, DCD appears to still not be well known, even to many clinicians. To date, this has been documented among specific groups of clinicians (e.g., occupational therapists) in primarily English-speaking regions, but has not been compared across specific clinical professions or across countries. Therefore, we conducted a cross-national study to examine if clinicians in primarily English-speaking and German-speaking communities of various professions are sufficiently informed about characteristics of DCD in comparison with ADHD and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Methods

N = 346 clinicians responded to questions in an online survey about general awareness and their experience in treating neurodevelopmental disorders, especially regarding specific characteristics of DCD and ADHD. Moreover, we asked them to classify a case vignette with DCD.

Results

Overall, 58% of participants had heard of DCD but only 42% had treated individuals with DCD. More specific knowledge about DCD and ADHD was low, varied by profession, and was generally reduced among clinicians working in primarily German-speaking communities. Participants often gave an incorrect diagnosis for the case vignette (35% correct responses) but still offered correct treatment recommendations (61% correct responses).

Conclusions

Awareness of the specific nature of DCD is still lacking for many clinicians. More training about DCD and other neurodevelopmental disorders should be disseminated in clinical training.