The Role of Clinical Characterization on Altered White Matter Integrity in Gross Motor Skills of Children With Developmental Coordination Disorder

BACKGROUND: Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) is characterized by difficulties in motor coordination and is highly comorbid with one or more neurodevelopmental disorders. Multiple studies report that DCD is associated with prenatal and perinatal risk factors for brain damage. However, few studies have examined the role of clinical characterization in DCD. METHODS: To examine this, 22 participants were enrolled in the study (9 females; mean (M) age: 2 months to 6.6 ± 0.6 years). All of them were diagnosed with DCD, comorbid with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, specific learning disorder, or specific language impairment. Comparisons between subgroups with more versus fewer DCD comorbidities were performed in motor, neuropsychologic tests, and magnetic resonance imaging diffusion measures (fractional anisotropy and axial diffusivity (AD) of body, minor, and major portions of the corpus callosum, left and right corticospinal tract (CST), superior longitudinal fasciculus, and inferior longitudinal fasciculus tracts), and a linear regression model was also fitted to explore the predictors of DCD's gross motor skills. RESULTS: The group with fewer DCD comorbidities (0 or 1) exhibited higher Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children indices and AD of the right CST. The regression model indicated that greater gross motor scores were mainly predicted by higher AD in the body of the corpus callosum, higher fractional anisotropy in the left CST, and right superior longitudinal fasciculus II. CONCLUSIONS: Children with DCD and greater gross motor scores exhibit fewer alterations in white matter integrity, while the alterations in white matter integrity associated with DCD seem to interact and contribute to the presence of DCD's comorbidities.