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Inhibitory oculomotor control in children with developmental coordination disorder: an exploratory study
María I Hernández-Gutiérrez1, Yaira Chamorro2, Valentin Osuna-Enciso3
1Posgrado en Ciencia del Comportamiento, Orientación Neurociencia, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Biológicas y Agropecuarias, Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Insights
Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) show adequate eye movement control but struggle with sustained visual attention and inhibiting unwanted eye movements. This suggests executive function deficits contribute to DCD motor difficulties.
Area of Science:
- Oculomotor control
- Neurodevelopmental disorders
- Executive functions
Background:
- Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is characterized by motor difficulties.
- Oculomotor control deficits are increasingly recognized as a potential component of DCD.
- Understanding inhibitory control in DCD is crucial for targeted interventions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate inhibitory oculomotor control in children with DCD.
- To compare eye movement performance between children with DCD and neurotypical controls.
- To determine if executive function, specifically inhibitory control, is impaired in DCD.
Main Methods:
- Participants included children with DCD (n=13) and age-matched neurotypical controls (n=17).
- Oculomotor tasks included sustained fixation, prosaccade, antisaccade, and manual reaction time.
- Performance metrics analyzed included reaction times, movement accuracy, and saccade characteristics.
Main Results:
- No significant differences were found in prosaccade and antisaccade tasks between groups.
- Children with DCD exhibited poorer performance on sustained fixation tasks.
- The DCD group demonstrated shorter fixation durations and increased intrusive saccades during fixation.
Conclusions:
- Children with DCD possess adequate rapid eye movement control but face challenges in sustained attention and inhibitory control.
- Difficulties in voluntarily maintaining visual attention and inhibiting unwanted saccades are evident in DCD.
- Findings support the link between executive function deficits, particularly inhibitory control, and motor impairments in DCD.
Abstract:
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.
