Performance on Functional Strength Measurement and Muscle Power Sprint Test confirm poor anaerobic capacity in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder.
Kids with DCD lose sprint and strength speed faster each grade—catch it with a quick bike test and add brief power games.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team compared kids with Developmental Coordination Disorder to typically-developing classmates.
They used two quick tests: a sprint bike test and a strength-repetition circuit.
All children lived in Taiwan and were in elementary school.
What they found
Kids with DCD scored lower on both power and strength tasks.
The gap was bigger in older children than in younger ones.
No special equipment beyond a bike and stopwatch was needed.
How this fits with other research
Li et al. (2011) tracked the same population for three years and saw fitness drop each year.
Xenitidis et al. (2010) found the same kids also tire faster on long runs.
Whitehouse et al. (2013) saw no strength gap between severe and mild DCD, yet Eussen et al. (2016) did find a gap versus typical peers. The difference is in the yardstick: O used broad strength bands, M used precise power scores.
Barton et al. (2019) added that parents of DCD kids offer less ride-to-practice help, which may explain why the power gap keeps growing.
Why it matters
You now have a two-minute sprint test that flags fading muscle power before it blocks daily play.
Add it to your intake battery, especially for older elementary clients.
Pair results with parent interviews about activity support, then script short, fun power bursts like jump rope or timed hallway dashes to keep the gap from widening.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: There is little and conflicting information about anaerobic performance and functional strength in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). AIMS: To investigate anaerobic capacity and functional strength in children with a clinical diagnosis of DCD (clin-DCD) and if differences were larger in older (age 7-10 years) compared to younger children (age 4-6 years). Furthermore to determine the percentage of children with clin-DCD that scored <15th percentile on the norm-referenced Functional Strength Measurement. METHOD: A clin-DCD group (36 boys, 11 girls, mean age: 7y 1mo, SD=2y 1mo) and a typically developing group (TD) (57 boys, 53 girls, mean age: 7y 5mo, SD=1y 10mo) were compared on Muscle Power Sprint Test (MPST) and Functional Strength Measurement (FSM). RESULTS: Children with clin-DCD performed poorer on the MPST and FSM, especially on the muscle endurance items of the FSM. The differences were larger in the older children compared to the younger on the cluster muscle endurance and the FSM total score. Over 50% of clin-DCD group scored <15th percentile on the FSM. INTERPRETATION: Differences between children with clin-DCD and TD children are even more pronounced in the older children, especially when tested on items requiring fast repetitive movements.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2016 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2016.08.002