The effect of visual therapy on the ocular motor control of seven- to eight-year-old children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD).
A 45-minute weekly eye-game session at school can wipe out ocular-motor delays in 7- to young learners with DCD and the fix still works two years later.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Dané and colleagues ran an 18-week visual-therapy program at school.
They worked with 7- to young learners who have developmental coordination disorder (DCD).
Kids got one 45-minute session each week with eye-tracking games, ball tracking, and prism glasses.
What they found
over the study period every child scored in the normal range on ocular-motor tests.
Gains stayed strong two years later with no extra training.
The biggest jumps were in smooth eye pursuit and rapid shifting between targets.
How this fits with other research
Araujo et al. (2021) showed CO-OP coaching also helps kids with DCD, but it focused on tying shoes and handwriting, not eye control.
Whitehouse et al. (2013) found blind children lag far behind on gross motor skills; Dané’s results flip that coin—when the eyes can be trained, motor control catches up.
Tal-Saban et al. (2021) warned that DCD plus delay hurts social skills; fixing eye control early may head off those later problems.
Why it matters
You can add a short eye-training block to any school IEP.
No extra staff is needed—one teacher aide can run the games after a single demo.
Try it next term and track reading speed or ball-catching; you may see gains in weeks.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The aims of this study were to determine the extent of ocular, motor control problems and the effect of visual therapy on such problems, among seven- to eight-year-old children diagnosed with DCD. Thirty-two, children with a mean age of 95.66 months (SD ± 3.54) participated in the study. The MABC was used to classify children into DCD categories (<15th, percentile) while the Sensory Input Systems Screening Test and QNST-II, were used to evaluate ocular motor control. A two-group pre-test-post-test, cross-over design was followed with a retention test two years, thereafter to determine the lasting effect of the visual therapy, intervention. The 18-week visual therapy programme was executed once a week, for 40 min during school hours, after which the two groups were, crossed over. Percentages of ocular motor control problems ranging, between 6.25% and 93.75% were found in both the groups before participating, in the visual therapy programme, with the highest percentage problems found, in visual pursuit with the left eye. Visual therapy contributed to a, significant improvement of 75-100% in visual pursuit, fixation, ocular, alignment and convergence, with significant lasting effects (p<0.001). Visual therapy is recommended for children with DCD experiencing poor, ocular motor control.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2013 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2013.08.036