AUTHOR=Subara-Zukic Emily , Cole Michael H. , McGuckian Thomas B. , Steenbergen Bert , Green Dido , Smits-Engelsman Bouwien CM , Lust Jessica M. , Abdollahipour Reza , Domellöf Erik , Deconinck Frederik J. A. , Blank Rainer , Wilson Peter H. 

TITLE=Behavioral and Neuroimaging Research on Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD): A Combined Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Recent Findings

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.809455

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.809455

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=Aim: The neurocognitive basis of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD; or motor clumsiness) remains an issue of continued debate. This combined systematic review and meta-analysis provides a synthesis of recent experimental studies on the motor control, cognitive, and neural underpinnings of DCD. 
Method: The review included all published work conducted since September 2016 and up to April 2021. One-hundred papers with a DCD-Control comparison were included, with 1,374 effect sizes entered into a multi-level meta-analysis. 
Results: The most profound deficits were shown in: voluntary gaze control during movement; cognitive-motor integration; practice-/context-dependent motor learning; internal modelling; more variable movement kinematics/kinetics; larger safety margins when locomoting, and atypical neural structure and function across sensori-motor and prefrontal regions. 
Interpretation: Taken together, these results on DCD suggest fundamental deficits in visual-motor mapping and cognitive-motor integration, and abnormal maturation of motor networks, but also areas of pragmatic compensation for motor control deficits. Implications for current theory, future research, and evidence-based practice are discussed.  
PROSPERO reference: CRD42020185444