Social and Affective Problems of Children Who Are Clumsy: How Early Do They Begin?

The purpose of this study was to examine the social and affective concomitants of clumsiness in children. The results suggest that children who are clumsy are more introverted than children without movement problems, judge themselves to be less competent both physically and socially, and are significantly more anxious. However, when the relationship between severity of clumsiness and social or affective problems was investigated, only socially negative behavior was shown to be less common in the children who were most severely clumsy. No other aspect of social or affective functioning was related to the degree of clumsiness. Although some patterns were detected among social and affective problems, the overall picture was rather heterogeneous. The implications of the results for development and intervention are discussed.