Developmental coordination disorder and cerebral visual impairment: What is the association?
Six CVI-Inventory questions plus vision and IQ flags tell DCD from CVI in late-elementary kids.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team looked at school-age kids who have trouble moving. They asked: do some of these kids also have brain-based vision problems?
They gave vision, IQ, and movement tests to two groups. One group had developmental coordination disorder. The other had cerebral visual impairment.
They checked which questions best told the groups apart.
What they found
Both groups scored low on visual attention and motor tasks. The CVI group scored even lower on IQ and visual-cognitive tests.
Six short CVI-Inventory questions, plus low visual acuity and IQ flags, cleanly split the two diagnoses.
How this fits with other research
de Leeuw et al. (2024) extends this work. Their 10-minute gaze-tracking battery spots CVI-specific visual search errors. You can pair the six CVI-Inventory questions with the gaze test for a sharper picture.
Gomez et al. (2015) shows kids with DCD also struggle with number tasks. If a child fails both the six CVI questions and math screens, suspect DCD plus CVI, not just DCD.
Piwowarczyk et al. (2020) used parent concerns to sort preschool diagnoses. Serena et al. shift the same idea to school age and swap parent report for the CVI-Inventory.
Why it matters
You now have a quick six-question screen to decide whether a clumsy child needs a full CVI work-up. Add the gaze battery if you want lab proof. Flag low visual acuity and IQ to avoid mis-labeling CVI as pure DCD. Start the CVI-Inventory at your next multidisciplinary meeting.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
INTRODUCTION: Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) experience impairments beyond motor planning, affecting visual perceptual and visual-motor integration abilities, similar to children with Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI), making it challenging to distinguish between the two conditions. This study aimed to identify convergences and divergences in the clinical, neuropsychological, and functional vision-related skills of children with DCD and CVI. METHODS: An assessment of the neuropsychological profile (cognitive, visual cognitive, and motor coordination skills) and visual acuity were conducted on 65 children with DCD (mean age: 8 years, 1 month; SD: 1 year, 6 months) and 35 children with CVI (mean age: 8 years, 5 months; SD: 2 years, 6 months) and compared between the two groups. The CVI-Inventory (CVI-I) was used to evaluate functional vision-related problems and to cluster subjects. RESULTS: Visual attention, visual perception, global motor coordination, and visual constructive scores didn't differ between the two groups even if children with CVI showed lower scores in the intellectual, visual, visual cognitive, and motor abilities. The overlap index confirmed an overlap on most of the variables considered. Six discriminative questions from the CVI-I clustered subjects into two groups: the first, with more children with CVI (62.9 %) and a more compromised neuropsychological profile, and the second, with more children with DCD (86.7 %). CONCLUSION: DCD and CVI share both similarities and differences. Low visual acuity, low IQ scores, severe visual-motor integration challenges, and difficulties with fine motor and balance skills should prompt clinicians to screen for CVI in children with DCD. Specific functional vision-related problems can assist in this differentiation.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2025 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2025.105019