Mental rotation performance in young adults with and without developmental coordination disorder

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Motor Control

Background:

• Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is characterized by motor difficulties.
• Previous research noted atypical hand rotation task (HRT) performance in adults with DCD.
• The underlying cause remains debated: specific motor imagery (MI) deficits versus general mental rotation impairments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether motor coordination deficits in DCD are linked to specific difficulties in motor imagery (MI).
• To differentiate between motor imagery deficits and general visual imagery impairments in adults with DCD.

Main Methods:

• Compared 57 young adults (22 with DCD, 35 controls) on the HRT (MI measure) and the letter-number rotation task (LNRT; visual imagery).
• Included only participants using an MI strategy on the HRT for group comparisons.
• Analyzed performance efficiency on both tasks.

Main Results:

• Adults with DCD were significantly less efficient than controls on the HRT.
• Performance on the LNRT was comparable between adults with DCD and controls.
• These findings suggest task-specific rather than generalized visual-spatial processing deficits.

Conclusions:

• Atypical HRT performance in adults with DCD is likely due to specific difficulties with motor imagery (MI).
• The results support the internal modelling deficit hypothesis of DCD.
• Motor imagery deficits may reflect underlying issues with internal action representations in DCD.