CHILDREN WITH MOTOR DIFFICULTIES: ISSUES ON CONCEPTUALIZING DEVELOPMENTAL COORDINATION DISORDER

Abstract

The investigation of the nature of motor difficulties children experiment resulted in the identification of a developmental disorder known as Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Its nature is barely known though there are quite a number of hypotheses to explain it. The lack of consensus on the nature and the mechanisms of DCD might not be due to an apparent resilience of the disorder to the scientific enterprise. On the contrary, the present paper has a goal of presenting a thesis according to which the problem resides on the definition of DCD and on the selection of samples in studies that do not distinguish between clinical and research criteria. In conclusion, three steps for characterizing DCD are presented. The first two steps are important regardless they are for clinical or research purposes. It is the third one that is central to research for the purpose of unveiling the disorder’s nature and mechanisms. In this step, DCD should be characterized in subtypes, and the researches about the problem should be focus about theses subtypes.