Assessment of physical fitness and exercise tolerance in children with developmental coordination disorder.
Higher BMI chips away at strength and endurance only in kids with DCD, so pair motor goals with weight checks.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Farhat et al. (2015) compared fitness and exercise tolerance in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and typically developing peers. They looked at explosive strength, endurance, and body mass index (BMI).
The team used standard fitness tests in a small quasi-experimental design. They wanted to see if higher BMI hurt performance only in the DCD group.
What they found
Kids with DCD scored lower on every fitness measure. Higher BMI made their strength and endurance even worse.
The same BMI link did not show up in the control group. Only the DCD children lost extra fitness when weight went up.
How this fits with other research
Zhu et al. (2011) seemed to disagree. In Taiwanese 9- to 10-year-olds, obesity hurt balance and coordination in both DCD and typical kids. The new study shows the BMI penalty only inside the DCD group. The age gap explains the clash: younger kids in Faiçal’s work may still be developing basic motor patterns, while older Taiwanese children already show wider obesity effects.
Whitehouse et al. (2013) found no fitness gap between severe and moderate DCD. Faiçal adds that BMI, not severity labels, predicts who will struggle most.
Li et al. (2011) tracked the same children for three years and saw fitness decline over time. Faiçal’s BMI result gives a clear action point: watch weight early to slow that slide.
Why it matters
Screen motor fitness whenever you see a high BMI in a child with DCD. Add short, leg-based strength games and brief endurance bursts to keep the dose fun and low-impact. Share the BMI link with parents so they support healthy food and activity choices at home.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) have been shown to be less physically fit when compared to their typically developing peers. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationships among body composition, physical fitness and exercise tolerance in children with and without DCD. Thirty-seven children between the ages of 7 and 9 years participated in this study. Participants were classified according to results obtained on the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC) and were divided in 2 groups: 19 children with DCD and 18 children without DCD. All children performed the following physical fitness tests: The five-jump test (5JT), the triple-hop distance (THD) and the modified agility test (MAT). Walking distance was assessed using the 6-min walking test (6MWT). Children with DCD showed higher scores than children without DCD in all MABC subscale scores, as well as in the total score (p<0.001). Participants with DCD were found to perform significantly worse on the MAT (p<0.001), the THD (p<0.001) and 5JT (p<0.05). Moreover, children with DCD had poorer performance on the 6MWT than children without DCD (p<0.01). Our results found significant correlations among body mass index (BMI), THD (r=0.553, p<0.05), 5JT (r=0.480, p<0.05) and 6MWT (r=0.544, p<0.05) only in DCD group. A significant correlation between MAT and 5JT (r=-0.493, p<0.05) was found. Similarly, THD and 5JT (r=0.611, p<0.01) was found to be correlated in children with DCD. We also found relationships among 6MWT and MAT (r=-0.522, p<0.05) and the 6MWT and 5JT (r=0.472, p<0.05) in DCD group. In addition, we found gender specific patterns in the relationship between exercise tolerance, explosive strength, power, DCD, and BMI. In conclusion, the present study revealed that BMI was indicative of poorer explosive strength, power and exercise tolerance in children with DCD compared to children without DCD probably due to a limited coordination on motor control.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2015 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2015.07.023