Neural underpinnings of visuomotor adaptation and retention after a night of sleep in children with DCD.
Kids with DCD adapt and retain motor skills overnight, but never catch up to peers—target sensorimotor noise, not just repetition.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Warlop et al. (2025) watched kids with DCD practice a computer game. They turned a joystick to hit a target that jumped to new spots.
The team tracked brain waves while the kids slept that night. Next morning they tested if the skill stuck.
What they found
The DCD group kept making bigger aiming errors than peers. Their brains also showed weaker signals when the game surprised them.
Sleep helped both groups keep the skill, but the gap never closed. Sensorimotor noise, not slow learning, held them back.
How this fits with other research
Ben-Itzchak et al. (2020) saw the same pattern: kids with DCD learned a letter trace as fast as peers, yet the skill never spread to paper without dots. Both studies show learning speed can look normal while final performance stays poor.
Gheysen et al. (2011) used a similar joystick task and found DCD kids could not pick up hidden repeating sequences. Griet’s team now adds that even when the sequence is obvious, noisy motor output keeps accuracy low.
Peng et al. (2026) pooled 24 exercise trials and found big coordination gains. Griet’s EEG data hint that exercise might work best if it also sharpens sensory prediction, not just strengthens muscles.
Why it matters
Stop counting reps; start cutting noise. Use brief, accurate feedback after each try—lights, beeps, or a quick verbal cue. Keep practice short and frequent so the brain gets many tiny prediction-error lessons. Track not just success rate but how steady the child’s movement path looks; falling variability is your first sign the noise is dropping.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is often considered a motor learning disorder, yet supporting evidence remains limited and inconclusive. This study aimed to refine our understanding of motor learning in DCD by examining its underlying mechanisms and stabilization of learning in later stages, beyond ad hoc learning. Visuomotor adaptation was assessed in a two-session experiment involving prolonged learning phases, separated by a night of sleep, in a centre-out drawing task, in 21 children with (age: 13.7 ± 1.5 years) and 15 without DCD (age: 14.2 ± 1.4 years). Neurophysiological responses to adaptation were evaluated through EEG-measured error-related negativity, indexing sensory prediction error processing. Sleep quality was assessed to explore potential sleep impairments in DCD. Results seem to suggest difficulty in early-stage adaptation in DCD, reflected by greater directional error. However, their performance stabilised after prolonged learning, and they successfully updated their internal model of action, indicated by similar after-effects in both groups. On day two, participants with DCD seem to face more difficulty re-adapting but still achieved stabilised performance. Crucially, despite on-task learning gains, they never reached the performance level of their neurotypical peers, plateauing with higher directional errors, possibly due to a noisier sensorimotor system, that accommodates less reliable motor prediction. Neurophysiological findings suggested reduced sensory prediction error sensitivity in DCD, particularly in participants with persistent motor difficulties. Although sleep disturbances were observed in DCD, no direct link with learning outcomes was found. Overall, this study suggests that motor control limitations, rather than a core learning deficit, constrain motor performance in children with DCD.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2025 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2025.105170