Effectiveness of neuromotor task training for children with developmental coordination disorder: a pilot study.
The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a Neuromotor Task Training (NTT), recently developed for the treatment of children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) by pediatric physical therapists in the Netherlands. NTT is a task-oriented treatment program based upon recent insights from motor control and motor learning research. Ten children with DCD (intervention group) were tested before and after 9 and 18 treatment sessions on the Movement ABC and a dysgraphia scale in order to measure the effectiveness of treatment on gross and fine motor skills in general and handwriting in particular. Five children (no-treatment control group) were tested twice with a time lag of nine weeks on the Movement ABC in order to measure spontaneous improvement. No improvement was measured for the children in the no-treatment control group, whereas a significant improvement was found for children in the intervention group for both quality of handwriting and performance on the Movement ABC after 18 treatment sessions.
Schoemaker
M M
MM
Institute of Human Movement Sciences, University of Groningen, the Netherlands. M.M.Schoemaker@PPSW.RUG.NL
Niemeijer
A S
AS
Reynders
K
K
Smits-Engelsman
B C M
BC
D000381:Agraphia / Q000628:therapy; D002648:Child; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006236:Handwriting; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D019957:Motor Skills Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D009426:Netherlands; D026741:Physical Therapy Modalities; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D016896:Treatment Outcome