3 research outputs found
A comprehensive special educational diagnostic assessment of five-year-old children with developmental coordination disorder (case studies)
No full textDevelopmental coordination disorder (DCD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder which affects different areas of an individual's everyday living and learning. Children with DCD are often diagnosed late, at school age, when difficulties with writing, organization and executive functions arise, even though one could have seen signs of probable DCD very early in childhood. The aim of this study was to further assess five-year-old, preschool children recognized as children with DCD, and develop a model for a comprehensive special educational diagnostic assessment of abilities and skills in five-year-old children with DCD. The comprehensive diagnostic assessment comprised observations and assessments of children’s everyday skills in their kindergartens. It also included semi-structured interviews with children, their parents and their preschool teachers. Further, children’s skills and abilities in all developmental domains (sensory and motor skills, cognitive abilities, social and emotional development, speech and language development, including emerging literacy skills, and early maths skills) were assessed. A qualitative analysis was undertaken to compare individual children’s comprehensive assessments. The developed model included both the strengths and weaknesses of the assessed children
An international collaboration for identifying cross-cultural differences in motor development of young preschoolers
No full textIntroduction: Screening tools to identify motor development and delay are needed for young preschoolers, but instruments developed in one country may not be psychometrically sound when used in other cultures. This study aimed to collaboratively develop the Little Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (LDCDQ) (a screening instrument for motor difficulties in young preschoolers) between several countries, while ensuring numerous psychometrically sound, comparable versions of the tool. Objectives: To enable analysis and comparison of different patterns of motor development and/or delay in different cultures. Methods: Based on a similar instrument for older children, the Little DCDQ was developed in Hebrew and psychometrically tested. After generating an English Little DCDQ (following recommended guidelines), 27 researchers from 20 international sites adapted and psychometrically tested the instrument with their local cultures/languages. Thereafter, each collaborator assessed 40 children aged 3-4.11 (20 typically developing; 20 with suspected motor difficulties) following the same protocol, and data was compared. Results: The first phase of this collaboration will be briefly described and cross-cultural comparative results of typically developing children will be explored. Within most countries, significant differences in motor performance between referred and non-referred children were found. When comparing between countries, significant cultural differences were more noticeable for non-referred than referred children; trends in high- and low-scoring means will be discussed. Conclusion: This is the first attempt to develop an instrument with the aim of facilitating cross-cultural comparison of motor development and delay in young preschoolers, which will enable a unified language for researchers and clinicians working in this field
Bridge-building between communities: Imagining the future of biomedical autism research
No full textA paradigm shift of research culture is required to ease perceived tensions between autistic people and the biomedical research community. As a group of autistic and non-autistic scientists and stakeholders, we contend that through participatory research we can reject a deficit-based conceptualisation of autism whilst building a shared vision for a neurodiversity-affirmative biomedical research paradigm
