The effects of a visuo-motor and cognitive dual task on walking adaptability in children with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder.

Background: Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD-C) have motor coordination deficits which lead to difficulties in sports and play activities that require adaptations of the walking pattern. Sports and play often involve performing dual tasks, which affects performance in DCD-C more than in typically developing children (TD-C). So far, testing the impact of dual tasking on walking adaptability in DCD-C has received little scientific attention.

Research Question: We tested the hypothesis that 6-12 year old DCD-C will show lower levels of walking adaptability than TD-C, and that due to problems with automatization this difference will increase when they are forced to divide their attention between tasks when a concurrent visuo-motor or cognitive task is added.

Methods: Twenty-six DCD-C and sixty-nine TD-C were included in this cross-sectional study. They performed a challenging walking adaptability (WA) task on a treadmill as a single, a visuo-motor dual and a cognitive dual task at a pace of 3.5 km/h. Repeated measures ANCOVAs were performed with condition (single/dual task) as within-subjects factor, group (TD/DCD) as between-subjects factor, and age as covariate.

Results: DCD-C performed poorer on the WA task than TD-C. The group differences increased when a concurrent visuo-motor task was added, but not when adding a concurrent cognitive task. A significant effect of age was found with younger children performing worse on all tasks.

Significance: The results highlight the problems DCD-C have with walking adaptability and dual tasks, which capacities are essential for full participation in sports and play activities. Future research should investigate whether DCD-C may benefit from task-specific walking adaptability training.