SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Movement Science
Intervention Effect of Physical Activity on Motor Coordination for Children and Adolescents with Developmental Coordination Disorder: A Meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Harbin Sport University, Harbin, China
- 2wuhan sport university, wuhan, China
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Objectives: This review aims to explore the effects of physical activity on the effectiveness of interventions for motor coordination in children and adolescents with developmental coordination disorder. Methods: Based on the PRISMA principle, PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, CochraneLibrary, CINAHL, SPORTDiscus and other databases were searched. 9 studies were included, involving 543 participants aged 5 to 16 years, using Revman5.4 and Stata16 software, and setting physical activity intensity, the session duration, weekly frequency, and total intervention cycle 4 moderating variables for subgroup analysis. Results: (1) Meta-analysis showed no statistically significant improvement in motor coordination from physical activity interventions, as measured by either the MABC (MD=-0.49, 95% CI: -1.44 to 0.46, P=0.31) or the MABC-2 (MD=2.97, 95% CI: -2.25 to 8.18, P=0.26) scale. (2) Subgroup and sensitivity analyses indicated notable heterogeneity across studies, which potentially related to variations in intervention parameters and control group conditions. While low-intensity activities appeared to show a favorable trend, this finding should be interpreted with caution given the limited number of studies and differences in study design. Conclusion: Based on the current limited evidence, physical activity did not yield a uniform improvement in motor coordination among children and adolescents with developmental coordination disorder. However, variations in study design, including differences in intervention intensity and control group activity, may contribute to the observed inconsistencies. Future researchs with larger, well-controlled randomized trials are needed to clarify the specific conditions under which physical activity may exert optimal benefits.
Keywords: physical activity, developmental coordination disorder, Childhood Adolescents, motor coordination, Meta-analysis
Received: 01 Jun 2025; Accepted: 31 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hua, Song, liu and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: ZhenPeng Song, songzhenpeng2021@126.com
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