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Updated: Jul 3, 2026
Quantitative Assessment of Cortical Auditory-tactile Processing in Children with Disabilities
Published on: January 29, 2014
Auditory-motor coupling of bilateral finger tapping in children with and without DCD compared to adults
J Whitall1, T-Y Chang, C L Horn
1Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, University of Maryland, 100 Penn Street, Baltimore, MD 21201, United States. JWhitall@som.umaryland.edu
Insights
Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) struggle to synchronize finger tapping to auditory rhythms, showing more variability and less accuracy than typically developing peers. Their auditory-fine-motor control is broadly matched, lacking precise synchronicity.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Motor Control
Background:
- Auditory-motor synchronization is crucial for various daily activities.
- Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) affects motor skills, potentially impacting auditory-motor integration.
- Understanding these deficits is key to targeted interventions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the ability of children with DCD to synchronize bilateral finger tapping to auditory rhythms.
- To compare the auditory-motor synchronization capabilities of children with DCD, typically developing children, and adults.
- To identify specific challenges faced by children with DCD in modulating tapping frequency and maintaining synchrony.
Main Methods:
- Bilateral index and middle finger tapping in an alternating pattern to auditory signals at varying frequencies (0.8-3.2 Hz).
- Participants included 7-year-old children with and without DCD, and adults.
- Analysis focused on tap accuracy (SD of relative phase) and inter-finger coordination.
Main Results:
- Children with DCD showed greater variability in tap accuracy and inter-finger coordination compared to typically developing children and adults.
- Children with DCD struggled to slow tapping to the lowest frequency and exhibited poor synchrony with the auditory beat.
- Adults were tightly synchronized, while typically developing children tended to lag behind the beat.
Conclusions:
- Children with DCD demonstrate broad, yet imprecise, auditory-fine-motor control, characterized by significant variability and poor synchronicity.
- Specific difficulties in modulating tapping to slower frequencies correlate with higher motor variability and lower MABC scores in some children with DCD.
- These findings highlight distinct auditory-motor integration challenges in DCD, necessitating tailored therapeutic approaches.
Abstract:
The ability to modulate bilateral finger tapping in time to different frequencies of an auditory beat was studied. Twenty children, 7 years of age, 10 with and 10 without developmental coordination disorder (DCD), and 10 adults tapped their left index and right middle fingers in an alternating pattern in time with an auditory signal for 15s (four trials each, randomly, at 0.8, 1.6, 2.4, 3.2 Hz per finger). Dominant and non-dominant finger data were collapsed since no differences emerged. All three groups were able to modulate their finger frequency across trials to closely approximate the signal frequency but children with DCD were unable to slow down to the lowest frequency. Children with DCD were more variable in tap accuracy (SD of relative phase) and between finger coordination than typically developing children who were respectively more variable than the adults. Children with DCD were unable to consistently synchronize their finger with the beat. Adults were tightly synchronized and often ahead of the beat while children without DCD tended to be behind the beat. Overall, these results indicated that children with DCD can only broadly match their finger movements to an auditory signal with variability and poor synchronicity as key features of their auditory-fine-motor control. Individual inspection of the data revealed that five children with DCD had difficulty matching the slowest frequencies and that these children also had higher variability and lower percentile MABC scores from the movement assessment battery for children (MABC) than other children with DCD. Three children with DCD were more variable only at higher frequencies and two performed like typically developing children.
