A Teleintervention in Developmental Coordination Disorder

Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by difficulties in planning and execution of motor coordination activities like dressing, sports and writing. Increasing parents' capacity to manage their children's needs is part of the recommended DCD best practices, as soon as children are suspected to have DCD or early following diagnosis. Parents' capacity could be increased through simple, community-based interventions using a consultative approach. Using the Internet could be an interesting avenue to develop public community-based services and build parents' capacity to manage their child with DCD. The feasibility of recruiting and using the Internet to build parents' capacity is however unknown, since no such study have been conducted.

This randomized feasibility trail will experiment a teleintervention, characterized by a virtual interaction between a health professional and a user by Internet, for children with DCD. The principal study goals are to determine if a randomized control trial would be feasible, particularly with regards to i) recruitment and retention of parents of children having a diagnosis or a suspicion of diagnosis of DCD, and ii) parents' utilization of the teleintervention. The study will also examine quantitatively and qualitatively families' acceptability of- and satisfaction with the teleintervention. As part of the evaluation of acceptability, the impact of the teleintervention on parental competencies will be explored. At the end of the 3-months randomized feasibility trial, the influence of the number of participants on the utilization of the teleintervention will be explored by providing access to the teleintervention to all participants (control and intervention).

Inclusion criteria

• A DCD medical diagnostic (or DCD medical hypothesis)
• Must be at or under the 16e percentile for the global score at the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 (MABC-2) or be at or under the 5e for one of the 3 subscale of the MABC-2.

Exclusion criteria

• Do not have other neurodevelopmental diagnoses, with the exception of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• Do not receive rehabilitation services for DCD in the public health care system