Auditory Cues for Improving Rhythmic Motor Skills in Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD)

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Perceptual, Sensory, Motor

Abstract

Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder defined by the DSM-V as a marked impairment in the acquisition and performance of coordinated motor skills. DCD affects 5-6% of children across a wide range of fine and gross motor abilities, and has a significantly negative impact on the execution of simple daily tasks. Children with DCD are often described as “clumsy”, as they struggle with tasks such as handwriting, tying their shoes, using scissors, and riding a bike. These deficits often lead to decreased academic achievement, lower self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and childhood obesity (Lingam et al., 2012; Rivilis et al., 2011). Despite the high prevalence and negative outcomes, limited research has been done on DCD.
Recent evidence suggests that auditory timing perception is achieved through interactions between auditory and motor regions of the brain. Many of the motor tasks in which children with DCD have poor performance involve timing, including motor and visual-motor timing (Waelvelde et al., 2004). However, auditory and auditory-motor timing has not been well studied, despite its importance for speech and music perception and production. Given previous research showing motor areas are involved in auditory time perception, we hypothesized children with DCD would have impaired auditory time perception and auditory-motor synchronization. In a previous study in our lab, we found that, compared to typically developing (TD) children, children with DCD aged 6-7 have larger perceptual discrimination thresholds for duration (p = .009) and rhythm-based timing (p = .012), but not for pitch. The present study aims to investigate auditory-motor synchronization and explore whether auditory rhythmic stimuli can help 7- to 9-year-old children with DCD execute rhythmic motor movements. Our experiment consists of two main tasks: a speech perception task, investigating whether children use rhythmic cues in speech to identify target words, and a tapping production task. We test tapping consistency when: tapping alone, with an auditory metronome, continuation tapping (maintaining tapping after metronome stops), and tapping to the beat of musical dance excerpts. Data collection is ongoing, and researchers are blind to group allocations (DCD or TD). Current data in group A (n = 13) shows an expected higher performance in identifying target words when the rhythm of a sentence is intact, compared to sentences where the rhythm has been modified (p = .007). In group B (n = 9), there is no significant difference in performance between conditions, suggesting that children in this group may not be using rhythm as a strong cue for speech perception. In tapping production tasks, both children with DCD and TD children tap significantly more consistently in conditions with an auditory metronome compared to no auditory cue (p < .001) and conditions with music compared to no auditory cue (p < .001). These results suggest that children with DCD can improve their rhythmic motor skills with the presence of an auditory cue, in turn suggesting that auditory-motor training, such as music or dance therapy, may confer additional benefit over motor training alone for children with DCD.

Authors

• Chantal Carrillo, McMaster University
  Presenting Author

• Andrew Chang, McMaster University
  Non-Presenting Author

• John Cairney, University of Toronto
  Non-Presenting Author

• Devin McAuley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laurel Trainor, McMaster University
  Non-Presenting Author