Roadside judgments in children with Developmental Co-ordination Disorder

Area of Science:

• Pedestrian safety
• Developmental psychology
• Visual perception

Background:

• Pedestrian ability to judge vehicle approach and select safe crossing gaps relies on visual looming sensitivity and motor synchronization.
• Children with Developmental Co-ordination Disorder (DCD) may have visual processing deficits, particularly in motion detection, potentially increasing roadside risks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess roadside visual skills in children with DCD.
• To compare motion prediction abilities between children with DCD and typically developing controls.

Main Methods:

• Motion prediction tasks assessing relative approach rate judgments (looming) with varying vehicle sizes.
• Measurement of crossing gap selection thresholds at different vehicle approach speeds (32-80 km/h).
• Comparison of these skills with children's walking speeds.

Main Results:

• Children with DCD demonstrated deficits in judging relative vehicle approach rates (looming), indicating potential inability to discern speeds exceeding urban limits.
• Children with DCD selected significantly larger temporal crossing gaps than controls, possibly due to reduced confidence.
• Preferred gaps for children with DCD were more than double the average inter-car gaps on local roads.

Conclusions:

• Children with DCD exhibit impaired visual-motor skills crucial for pedestrian safety.
• Findings highlight potential pedestrian competence issues and limitations for children with DCD.
• Further research is needed to address the roadside risks faced by children with DCD.