Psychometric properties of a Chinese version of the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire in community-based children.
The Chinese DCDQ gives reliable scores but only modest cut-off accuracy, so use it as a first screen and follow up with clinical motor testing.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Tseng et al. (2010) tested the Chinese DCDQ in community children. Parents filled out the 15-item form about motor skills.
The team checked if scores stayed steady over two weeks. They also compared scores to an occupational-therapy exam.
What they found
The questionnaire showed good internal consistency and stable test-retest scores. It caught most true cases but also flagged many typical kids.
Sensitivity was 73 percent and specificity was 54 percent. The authors say use the full score, not a single cut-off.
How this fits with other research
Guo et al. (2019) also translated a parent screener — the Chinese M-CHAT-R/F — and got much higher accuracy for autism. Their tool had 96 percent sensitivity and 87 percent specificity. The gap shows the DCDQ needs a sharper cut-off or extra clinical steps.
Lin et al. (2015) validated another Chinese tool, the CSBS DP, in toddlers. Like Mei-Hui, they found good reliability, but they did not report sensitivity or specificity. Together these papers form a set: Chinese parent forms work well for flagging delays, yet each still needs local norms.
De Roubaix et al. (2025) looked at DCD from a different angle. They scored old home videos and saw poor movement quality at 18–24 months in kids later diagnosed with DCD. Their negative finding reminds us that parent questionnaires and direct observation capture different windows: the DCDQ picks up current complaints, while early video shows motor signs before parents notice.
Why it matters
If you assess Chinese-speaking children, you can now use the DCDQ with confidence in its score stability. Because the cut-off mis-labels many kids, treat low scores as a yellow flag, not a diagnosis. Pair the form with a quick motor task or referral to OT. This mixed approach keeps sensitivity high while cutting false positives.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The aim of this study was to adapt and evaluate the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCDQ) for use in Chinese-speaking countries. A total of 1082 parents completed the DCDQ and 35 parents repeated it after 2 weeks for test-retest reliability. Two items were deleted after examination of test consistency. Cronbach's alpha for the total score was 0.89 and test-retest reliability was 0.94. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed this version to be compatible with the original and two adaptations of the DCDQ. One-way ANOVA and the post hoc tests revealed that the non-DCD group scored significantly higher than the DCD group and the suspect DCD group, but the latter two did not differ significantly. Sensitivity and specificity of the DCDQ were 73% and 54%. The estimated area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve was 0.68. Compared to the dichotomized grouping in assessing sensitivity and specificity, which provides clinicians with all or none information about a child's probability of being DCD, the informative conditional effect plot could alert clinicians to the child with less conspicuous movement problems. This adaptation of the DCDQ could be used for identifying motor coordination problems in Chinese-speaking societies.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2010 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2009.07.018