TY  - UNPB
M1  - Doctoral
PB  - Institute of Education, University of London
Y1  - 2006///
A1  - Peters, Judith M.
N2  - Abstract
Bright children who have abnormal difficulty in acquiring age-appropriate motor
skills are of increasing concern to parents, teachers and health professionals.
Longitudinal studies have found the condition to be associated with educational
under-achievement, impaired social development and disturbed mental well-being in
adult life. Now officially known as Developmental Coordination Disorder (DC D),
the question of whether this condition should really be viewed as a distinct diagnostic
entity is the central theme of this thesis.
In the opening chapters, the history of terms used to signify 'clumsiness' of
movement is reviewed and the different implications of treating such behaviour as a
symptom or syndrome is considered. Discussion then moves to the overlap between
DCD and other childhood conditions and the question of how these should be
conceptualised.
Five studies comprising the empirical component of the thesis employed a variety of
methodologies. Two questionnaire-based studies showed that in this area, neither
consensus on terms nor equitable service provision has yet been achieved. A third,
retrospective study, searched for evidence of sub-types within a large sample of DCD
children, successfully replicating some of the cluster groups reported by others. In a
final, prospective study, a two-stage identification process was followed by 'blind'
assessment of boys with DCD, Asperger Syndrome or Joint Hyper-mobility
Syndrome. Novel to this area was the inclusion of experimental measures, including
dual-task performance, in which motor and cognitive tasks were combined. The
results showed that although the group with AS were significantly poorer on ball
skills than those with OCD, the general nature of motor difficulties was not
systematically constrained by diagnosis. Together, these studies support the thesis
that DCD exists as a separable syndrome, but bear less decisively on the existence of
subtypes. A series of real-life case studies illustrates the problems associated with
differential diagnosis and the implications for appropriate intervention.
AV  - restricted
EP  - 329
N1  - Leaves 306-329 are appendices
ID  - discovery10007440
TI  - Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) as a distinct syndrome : a conceptual and empirical investigation
KW  - Perceptual motor disorders
KW  - Diagnosis
KW  - Theses
UR  - http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.436112
ER  -