Deficits of visuospatial attention with reflexive orienting induced by eye-gazed cues in children with developmental coordination disorder in the lower extremities: an event-related potential study.
Kids with DCD need more processing time—ERP shows slower inhibitory control and motor prep during attention tasks.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team looked at how kids with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) move their attention when they see a face look left or right.
They used a cap that records brain waves (ERP) while the kids pressed buttons during gaze-cue tasks.
All kids were matched by age; the study asked who was slower or faster at stopping the wrong response.
What they found
Kids with DCD took longer to stop the wrong button press and showed weaker brain waves tied to inhibitory control.
Their motor-planning brain wave also peaked later, hinting that both attention and prep for action run slow.
How this fits with other research
Austin et al. (2015) extends this picture by showing that poor touch localization in the non-dominant hand predicts messy handwriting in the same group, linking perceptual to fine-motor problems across senses.
Rombough et al. (2013) seems to contradict our gaze result: autistic kids automatically follow gaze just fine. The gap is the task. The DCD study timed reflexive shifts plus the need to stop a motor response, while the ASD study only checked if gaze pulled attention. Different demands reveal different weak spots.
Palka Bayard de Volo et al. (2021) and Fitzgerald et al. (2015) show similar slow or disconnected attention networks in ASD using ERP and fMRI, suggesting that delayed neural timing in attention systems is shared across developmental disorders even when surface behaviors differ.
Why it matters
If you work with kids who trip, drop things, or write poorly, do not assume they are not paying attention; their brains may just need a longer runway. Give clear gaze cues, build in extra response time, and pre-teach the stop signal. These small tweaks honor the slower inhibitory processing shown in this ERP work and can cut frustration during table-top or gym tasks.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present study aims to investigate and compare the behavioral performance and event-related potentials (ERPs) measures in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and typically developing (TD) children when performing the visuospatial attention task with reflexive orienting. Thirty children with DCD and 30 TD children were recruited and presented with central eye-gazed cues. The children needed to detect and respond to laterally presented reaction signals preceded by centrally presented non-predictive directional and non-directional eye-gazed cues, which directed them to attend covertly to the right or left field location, or straight ahead, via stepping on pedals with their bilateral lower limbs, while brain ERPs were concurrently recorded. The behavioral data showed that children with DCD responded slowly and exhibited a deficit in inhibitory control capacity as compared to TD children. In terms of electrophysiological characteristics, children with DCD showed distinct modulatory effects upon longer N2 and P3 latencies, smaller P3 amplitude, an elongated interval between N2 and the motor response (N2 latency-RT), and small areas on Contingent Negative Variation (CNV). The behavioral and ERP data suggest that children with DCD could have deficits in the ventral attention network and the mechanisms on the inhibitory control difficulty, when performing such a task, could be a slower response inhibitory process and stimulus classification speed, less ability in interhemispheric and cognitive-to-motor transfer speed, and less mature abilities with regard to anticipatorily executive and motor preparatory processes.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2010 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2010.01.003