Effects of virtual reality training intervention on predictive motor control of children with DCD – A randomized controlled trial
Section snippets
What this paper adds?
Assuming that deficit of internal modeling and predictive motor control is one of the causes of motor problems of children with DCD and also considering the proposed therapeutic role of motor imagery training in this area, the results of this paper show that virtual reality training interventions could help improve and consolidate predictive motor control in DCD children through increasing motor imagery abilities. This insight is a novel finding and can inform parents to focus on using virtual
Participants
Cluster sampling was used to select six public elementary schools with same socioeconomic backgrounds within the same district in Tabriz, Iran. The sample size was established with G-Power 3.1.9.2. based on assuming an effect size of 0.3 and at last 80 % power, a sample size of 32 children was deemed to be adequate to examine the hypothesis. We determined the sample size to be 40 children (2 groups of 20) regarding to, expecting possibility of individual variability and drop of participants,
Effect of intervention on MI
First, we provided the information on the participants’ characteristics (Table 2).
The results of repeated measures analysis of variance (2 × 3) as presented in Table 3, revealed significant main effects of time, group and also for the interaction between group and time (p < 0.05). Due to a significant group by time interaction was encountered (see Fig. 2A; Table 3), a follow-up analysis was conducted and revealed that there were no significant differences between the groups in the pre-test
Discussion
The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of VR training on the predictive models of DCD children. For this purpose, we investigated the effect of selected VR Xbox 360 Kinect-based exergames on the functions of MI, action planning, and rapid and online control. Based on the assumption that the deficits of predictive modeling manifest motor impairments of DCD, it was predicted that VR training would be able to provide augmented feedback and opportunity of observational learning and
Conclusion
This study was the first research on the effectiveness of VR training on the feedforward motor control functions of DCD children. With VR training and attainment of the ability of MI, DCD children seem to be able to develop and modify the internal models of movements, and their predictive modeling has probably improved. VR games offer an opportunity to immersive experience, involvement and promoting active learning for DCD children, but these games were not recommended as a replacement for
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Soghra EbrahimiSani: Data curation, Writing - original draft, Software, Project administration. Mehdi Sohrabi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - review & editing, Project administration. Hamidreza Taheri: Supervision. Mohammad Tagi Agdasi: Supervision. Shahrokh Amiri: Supervision.
References (108)
- et al.
Compromised motor control in children with DCD: A deficit in the internal model?—A systematic review
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
(2014) - et al.
Action planning and position sense in children with developmental coordination disorder
Human Movement Science
(2016) - et al.
Development of motor imagery and anticipatory action planning in children with developmental coordination disorder–A longitudinal approach
Human Movement Science
(2017) - et al.
Development of motor imagery and anticipatory action planning in children with developmental coordination disorder – A longitudinal approach
Human Movement Science
(2017) - et al.
Investigating motor planning in children with DCD: Evidence from simple and complex grip-selection tasks
Human Movement Science
(2018) - et al.
Motor planning with and without motor imagery in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder
Acta Psychologica
(2019) - et al.
Neuromotor deficits in developmental coordination disorder: Evidence from a reach-to-grasp task
Research in Developmental Disabilities
(2011) - et al.
Neurophysiological markers discriminate different forms of motor imagery during action observation
Cortex
(2020) - et al.
Assessing motor imagery using the hand rotation task: Does performance change across childhood?
Human Movement Science
(2014) - et al.
Action planning in typically and atypically developing children (unilateral cerebral palsy)
Research in Developmental Disabilities
(2010)