Causes of DCD

Key Concepts

• The process of learning, performing and coordinating a motor task is complex and a breakdown can occur at many stages
• The primary cause of DCD is unknown

How do coordination difficulties occur?

Movement difficulties can occur for many reasons and may take place at a number of different stages as a child takes in information and uses it to perform a motor task. Children are constantly receiving and using information from the environment. A child may have difficulty making sense of information received through their senses, using this information to choose a plan of action, organizing the specific motor movements of the task, sending the right message to produce a coordinated action, or combining all of these things in order to control the movement while it is happening. The result of any of these problems is the same: the child will appear clumsy and awkward and will have difficulty learning and performing new motor tasks.

Children with DCD have been shown to have difficulties controlling their posture and with their awareness of objects or their body in space. They appear to have difficulties planning movements (e.g sitting down on a chair or figuring out how to jump), with the timing and amount of force needed during movement (e.g., using too much or too little force to pick things up, being late reaching to catch a ball), and when combining information from their sensory and motor systems (e.g., needing to use a lot of visual information when climbing stairs or fastening buttons).

What causes DCD?

Although there are many theories, it is not yet possible to offer a clear answer about what causes DCD. As children with DCD can have associated difficulties in addition to their motor difficulties, it seems unlikely that a single factor will explain the coordination problems observed in this group of children. Most recently, researchers have suggested a possible link between the cerebellum and the challenges seen with DCD, as the cerebellum is critical for developing automatic movement control and the ongoing monitoring of movements, both of which are affected in DCD.