Motor coordination and health-related physical fitness of children with developmental coordination disorder: a three-year follow-up study.
Kids with DCD lose flexibility and core strength each year—catch it early and build short fitness drills into your ABA sessions.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Li et al. (2011) tracked the same group of kids with developmental coordination disorder for three years. They measured flexibility, strength, and endurance every year and compared scores to typically developing peers.
The study used standard fitness tests like sit-and-reach and curl-ups. No extra exercise program was given; they just watched what happened over time.
What they found
Kids with DCD started weaker and lost more ground each year. Flexibility, core strength, and endurance all dropped further behind their peers.
The gap was not just staying the same—it was getting wider. By year three, the difference was big enough to notice in everyday play and PE class.
How this fits with other research
Farhat et al. (2015) and Eussen et al. (2016) saw the same slide. They add that higher BMI and older age make the fitness drop even steeper.
Whitehouse et al. (2013) seems to disagree: they found no fitness gap between severe DCD, mild DCD, and controls. The key difference is location and method. O et al. tested Brazilian kids once and used simpler tools. Yao-Chuen used yearly tests and finer measures, so they caught the slow decline that a single snapshot can miss.
Robertson et al. (2013) helps explain why: kids with DCD use about 20% more oxygen during the same bike task. Less efficient muscles mean faster fatigue and steady fitness loss over time.
Why it matters
If you work with school-age kids who trip, drop things, or skip PE, screen fitness early. Add short, fun strength and stretch drills to your session plan. Track curl-ups or plank time each month. Small, steady practice can slow the slide that Yao-Chuen shows is coming.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Open your session with a 3-minute core circuit: 30 s plank, 10 curl-ups, 10 cat-camel stretches—track totals on a simple graph.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Health-related physical fitness is an important risk factor of cardiovascular disease. While previous studies have identified children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) to be less physically fit than typically developing (TD) peers, there is limited longitudinal research in this area. This study was undertaken to evaluate concomitant changes in motor coordination and health-related physical fitness of Taiwanese children with and without DCD over a three-year period. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children (Movement ABC) test was used to evaluate motor coordination, while health-related physical fitness included several core components: (1) body mass index (BMI), (2) sit and reach forward, (3) long jump, (4) sit-ups, and (5) 800-m run. Both the Movement ABC and fitness tests were implemented once each a year for three years. Twenty-five children with DCD and 25 TD children, matched by age and gender participated in this study. The TD group showed significant long-term changes in BMI and long jump while the DCD group showed significant increases in BMI values and decreases in flexibility, measured by the sit and reach task. In general, children with DCD performed worse on the items of flexibility, muscle strength and muscle endurance after the first year. Compared to age- and gender-matched norms, children with DCD not only were less physically fit, but showed a significant long-term decline in flexibility and abdominal or core strength (sit-ups). In years two and three, there was a significant negative correlation between poor fitness and motor coordination. Based on the results of this longitudinal study, greater attention should be paid to monitoring and improving physical fitness of children with DCD to prevent further health-related problems while intervention.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2011 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2011.04.009