Clinical description of children with developmental coordination disorder.
Occupational therapists working within School Health Support Services are receiving increasing numbers of referrals, relative to past rates, for children who are experiencing motor problems and may have developmental coordination disorder. Based upon clinical experience, therapists indicate that these children are typically referred in the early school years and that most have handwriting difficulties; to date, however, there has been little empirical evidence to support these observations. In this paper, descriptive information is presented for 556 children who may be presumed to have developmental coordination disorder and who had been referred to school-based health services in two centres. Typical reasons for referral, co-morbidity information, and assessment practices are presented. Findings confirmed the presence of many occupational performance issues in this population, including handwriting difficulties, and challenge therapists to broaden the current scope of school health assessment and intervention practices.
School of Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6G 1H1. lmiller@julian.uwo.ca
L T
LT
Miller
C A
CA
Missiuna
J J
JJ
Macnab
T
T
Malloy-Miller
H J
HJ
Polatajko
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009069:Movement Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D009788:Occupational Therapy; D009864:Ontario / Q000453:epidemiology; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D012189:Retrospective Studies