Title: Navigational abilities of typically developing individuals and individuals with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD)
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: During everyday life we walk around busy environments, negotiating stationary and moving obstacles. This is usually performed effortlessly but actually involves complex skills to visually monitor the environment and control body movements. For individuals with coordination difficulties this presents a real challenge and can have a negative impact on safe participation at school or work and in everyday life. Since little is understood about how we learn to negotiate obstacles and why some people have difficulty, this is the focus of the proposed work. We plan to investigate these skills in children and adults with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). DCD is characterized by everyday motor problems in the absence of sensory, intellectual or neurological impairment. The condition occurs in almost 2% of children and usually continues into adulthood. In the first phase of our work, we will describe basic patterns of gait. Research has focused on the typical development of foot placement during walking (step length and width etc) and some studies show these to be different in children with DCD, although this finding is not consistent. To our knowledge, no one has reported on acceleration or displacement of the trunk while walking in children or young adults, even though this is a common marker of loss of control in the elderly. Our research will examine both foot placement and trunk movement while walking to determine changes with age and differences between those with and without DCD. Our research will then go on to consider locomotion while negotiating a gap/aperture between obstacles such as that created by a doorway or parked cars. Here we must first make perceptual judgements about the absolute width of the aperture and our size in relation to it. The typical developmental course of some aspects of visual perceptual abilities has been studied in detail. A range of studies also show that many children with DCD have visual perceptual difficulties. However, work in this area has involved inspection of small visual stimuli in near space, which is not relevant to locomotor behaviour (which relies on visual information from far space). The second phase of our work will therefore be the first to investigate the ability of individuals with and without DCD to make accurate visual discriminations regarding stimuli in far space. Once a perceptual judgement regarding the size of an aperture has been made subsequent movements are adapted appropriately (e.g. turning the shoulders to pass through sideways). In our previous work we have found that in typically developing children and adults the size of these adaptations are based on the level of movement control such that the greater this control the smaller the safety margin needed between the shoulders and the sides of the aperture. In addition, the timing and magnitude of movement adaptations are tailored to aperture size, such that a reduction in approach speed is seen earlier and is greater for smaller apertures. The third phase of our research will be the first to investigate the nature of these movement adaptations in DCD. Our research to date has focused on movement adaptations to negotiate stationary obstacles, within a predictable environment. In real life, however, we often have to navigate an unpredictable environment. This adds an additional level of complexity in terms of movement planning and often requires a mover to update or change an ongoing movement. Research on adults has found that movement adaptations to unpredictable events are left until the last few moments when approaching and obstacle. In the fourth phase of our research we plan to investigate the developmental nature of these skills and the ability of individuals with DCD to manage unpredictable environments. The proposed research will further our understanding of the mechanisms underlying DCD and thereby assist in planning more effective interventions to support motor learning


Research activity codes: 2.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS;1.2 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC PROCESSES
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH