Volman M J M, Laroy M E, Jongmans M J
Department of General and Special Education, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Child Care Health Dev. 2006 Nov;32(6):693-702. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2214.2006.00679.x.
Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) have difficulties producing stable rhythmic bimanual coordination patterns in comparison with age-related peers. Rhythmic coordination of non-homologous limbs (e.g. hand and foot) is even more difficult to perform because of mechanical differences between the limbs. The aim of the present study is to investigate the stability of hand-foot coordination patterns of children with DCD.
Ten children with DCD (mean age 7.0 years, SD 1.1 years) and 16 control children (mean age 7.4 years, SD 1.3 years) participated in the study. They were asked to perform in-phase or anti-phase tapping movements in three different interlimb coordination combinations: (1) hand-hand (homologous), (2) hand-foot same body side (ipsilateral), and (3) hand-foot different body side (contralateral). Coordination stability was measured by the variability of the relative phase between the limbs under a 'steady state' (preferred) frequency condition, and by the critical frequency (i.e. the point at which loss of pattern stability was observed) in a condition in which the movement frequency was 'scaled' up (only anti-phase tapping).
Coordination patterns of children in the DCD group were less stable in all three limb combinations compared with controls. Further, hand-foot coordination patterns were less stable than hand-hand coordination patterns. With regard to hand-foot coordination, ipsilateral patterns were equally stable compared with contralateral patterns in the in-phase task, but less stable in the anti-phase task. No differential effects were found between the DCD and control groups across the different limb combinations, except for steady-state anti-phase coordination in the ipsilateral limb condition. This effect was due to a relatively good performance of the control children in this condition in comparison with the other limb combination conditions.
Children with DCD have difficulties producing stable rhythmic hand-foot coordination patterns compared with control children.
与年龄相仿的同龄人相比，患有发育性协调障碍（DCD）的儿童在产生稳定的节律性双手协调模式方面存在困难。由于肢体之间的机械差异，非同源肢体（如手和脚）的节律性协调更难执行。本研究的目的是调查患有DCD的儿童手足协调模式的稳定性。
10名患有DCD的儿童（平均年龄7.0岁，标准差1.1岁）和16名对照儿童（平均年龄7.4岁，标准差1.3岁）参与了该研究。他们被要求在三种不同的肢体间协调组合中进行同相或反相敲击动作：（1）手-手（同源），（2）同侧手脚（同侧），以及（3）对侧手脚（对侧）。协调稳定性通过在“稳态”（偏好）频率条件下肢体间相对相位的变异性来测量，并通过在运动频率“缩放”增加的条件下（仅反相敲击）的临界频率（即观察到模式稳定性丧失的点）来测量。
与对照组相比，DCD组儿童在所有三种肢体组合中的协调模式稳定性较差。此外，手足协调模式比手-手协调模式更不稳定。关于手足协调，在同相任务中，同侧模式与对侧模式的稳定性相同，但在反相任务中稳定性较差。除了同侧肢体条件下的稳态反相协调外，在不同肢体组合中，DCD组和对照组之间未发现差异效应。这种效应是由于与其他肢体组合条件相比，对照组儿童在这种条件下表现相对较好。
与对照儿童相比，患有DCD的儿童在产生稳定的节律性手足协调模式方面存在困难。
