Inhibitory oculomotor control in children with developmental coordination disorder: an exploratory study

The aim of this study was to elucidate whether failures in inhibitory oculomotor control are observed among children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). A group of children with DCD (n = 13) and a neurotypical, age-matched control group (n = 17) performed sustained fixation, prosaccade, antisaccade, and manual reaction time tasks. We found no between-group differences in terms of amplitude, duration, reaction times, and the percentage of correct and incorrect responses on the prosaccade and antisaccade tasks. However, the DCD group showed lower performance on the sustained fixation task with shorter duration and a higher number of intrusive saccades. Results suggest that children with DCD have adequate motor control to execute fast, precise visually-triggered eye movements, but experience some difficulties with the higher-order control of movement that requires voluntarily maintaining visual attention on a target for a certain interval and inhibiting saccades away from that target. The study provides evidence that supports the existing literature, which indicates that failures in the executive functions, such as inhibitory control, are related to the motor difficulties that children with DCD exhibit.