For who? 

School-aged children and adolescents

What is it?

An assessment of a child’s planning and execution of motor skills and their impact on daily living skills, academic skill / school productivity, leisure and play motor skills. A child’s performance in these motor skills is compared to their overall development to see if their difficulties are explained by a specific developmental co-ordination disorder (DCD) or if there are other reasons that may better explain their difficulties such as a general learning disability, an attention disorder, or a social communication disorder.

When might a DCD assessment be useful? 

If your child/ adolescent is showing some of the following difficulties on a daily basis across different contexts (e.g. home, school) then an assessment may be useful:

• Gross motor skills difficulties (e.g may appear un-coordinated or have an unusual walk / run, may have had difficulties learning to cycle, activities like jumping / hoping / skipping may not have come naturally to them, may not perform well in sports compared to their peers, may tire easily after exercise).
• Impaired balance / coordination / agility
• Impaired tool use – managing cutlery, writing, self-care (e.g washing)
• Fine motor coordination difficulties (e.g. poor cutting skills, difficulty manipulating small objects)
• Difficulty combining movements into sequence
• Difficulty remembering movements
• Poor completion of motor tasks
• Poor speed of motor performance
• Poor spatial awareness
• Left / right confusion
• Difficulty attending to and following instructions
• Poor organisational skills with Activities of Daily living (e.g. self-care, dressing, management of school belongings etc)

Problems are apparent in early childhood (e.g. delayed in sitting, crawling, using a spoon / knife / fork, pedalling a bike etc) but due to the variation in development at an early age DCD is typically assessed only when such motor co-ordination difficulties persist as a child is of school-going age.

What does DCD mean? 

DCD is a learning-based motor problem, it involves a disruption in the child's ability to learn new motor skills, to transfer new motor skills to subsequent tasks and to generalise that learning to new settings (Cairney, 2013). Other terms used to describe DCD are Dyspraxia or specific developmental disorder of motor function.

What happens in the assessment? 

A psychologist will assess the child / adolescent’s overall ability using a cognitive assessment and assessment of adaptive behaviour. The Occupational Therapist will use standardised assessments to assess the child's motor skills, and, where required, handwriting skills. Parental/teacher interview/questionnaires will be used to assess the child's participation in everyday activities at home and in school in regards to self-care, leisure, play skills and school work.

What happens after the assessment?

The clinicians will write up a report with your child’s results and observations about the child. Recommendations for supporting the child will be made in the report and these results and recommendations will be talked through with parents in a feedback meeting.

How much does it cost?

€900