Rhythmic Handwriting Deficits and General Rhythmic Abilities in Children (TDC-Rythme)

Links Between Rhythmic Handwriting Deficits and General Rhythmic Abilities in Children With Developmental Coordination Disorder: a Pilot Study. TDC-Rythme

Patients with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects motor skills and motor learning (APA, 2013), have been reported to manifest rhythmic deficits in handwriting domain, as well as general rhythmic deficits (i.e., regardless handwriting context per se) (Rosenblum & Regev, 2013). Accordingly, children with DCD struggle in tasks like synchronising to an external musical rhythm (in rhythm production tasks) or even in discrimination tasks such as detecting beat deviations, i.e., in rhythm perception tasks (INSERM collective expertise, 2019).

These rhythmic deficits which manifest in a variety of tasks and conditions support the hypothesis of a "generalised dysrhythmia" in DCD, according to which the rhythmic deficits - in perceptual tasks and motor production - could have a common source, namely a mechanism devoted to rhythm processing (a cerebral mechanism involved in the perception of rhythm) and independent of the effectors involved and the type of task considered.

However, the nature of the relationships between general rhythmic skills (perceptual and motor) and rhythmic abilities when engaged in handwriting movement is largely unknown in DCD. Whether a common source drives these diverse rhythmic deficits remains to explore. If this hypothesis were to be confirmed, this would pave the way for innovative therapeutic tools (e.g., serious games) for training a central rhythmic processing mechanism (rhythm perception), which could positively impact in turn rhythmicity of thandwriting movement in this population.

Study Overview

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Conditions: Developmental Coordination Disorder

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Estimated): 55

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: NESENSOHN Jessica; Phone Number: 04 67 33 52 17; Email: j-nesensohn@chu-montpellier.fr

Study Locations

• France
  • Montpellier, France
    • Hôpital La Colombière - CHU de Montpellier

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

DCD children

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Children aged 7 to 10 inclusive
• Children who can read and write
• Diagnosis of DCD according to DSM-5 criteria (APA, 2015)
• Native French speaker
• Living with at least one parent

Exclusion Criteria:

• Intellectual development disorder confirmed or suspected during the initial evaluation phase in the MPEA department.
• Presence or suspected presence of a visual impairment at the root of the motor skills deficit.
• Presence or suspected presence of a neurological motor disorder (e.g. sensory impairment, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, degenerative disease).
• Not affiliated to a social security scheme or not benefiting from such a scheme.
• Absence of written, informed consent from parents.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
The rhythm of handwriting movement	measured by the variability of the handwriting movement frequency, obtained by calculating the inverse of the period of the strokes (local minima of speed) from the children's writing productions on a graphic tablet (Danna et al., 2013).	1 day at First visit

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
The rhythmic variables	Perceptual and motor rhythmic skills out of context of handwriting, obtained from the assessment of rhythmic skills using the gold-standard BAASTA battery (Dalla Bella et al., 2017).	1 day at First visit
Speed of handwriting : abnormal peak velocity fluctuations during handwriting movement	Abnormal variations of the speed peaks during the writing movement are processed from the raw or transformed data according to the same conditions as in BHK test condition depending on the normality or non-normality of data.	1 day at First visit

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University Hospital, Montpellier

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• American Psychiatric Association (APA) (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.
• Dalla Bella S, Farrugia N, Benoit CE, Begel V, Verga L, Harding E, Kotz SA. BAASTA: Battery for the Assessment of Auditory Sensorimotor and Timing Abilities. Behav Res Methods. 2017 Jun;49(3):1128-1145. doi: 10.3758/s13428-016-0773-6.
• Danna J, Paz-Villagran V, Velay JL. Signal-to-noise velocity peaks difference: a new method for evaluating the handwriting movement fluency in children with dysgraphia. Res Dev Disabil. 2013 Dec;34(12):4375-84. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2013.09.012. Epub 2013 Oct 18.
• Expertise Collective INSERM (2019). Trouble développemental de la coordination ou dyspraxie, Paris : Les Editions EDP Sciences.
• Rosenblum S, Regev N. Timing abilities among children with developmental coordination disorders (DCD) in comparison to children with typical development. Res Dev Disabil. 2013 Jan;34(1):218-27. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2012.07.011. Epub 2012 Sep 6.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Estimated): October 16, 2023
• Primary Completion (Estimated): July 16, 2025
• Study Completion (Estimated): January 17, 2026

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 17, 2023
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 17, 2023
• First Posted (Actual): August 23, 2023

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): August 25, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 24, 2023
• Last Verified: August 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Handwriting; Rhythm; : Developmental Coordination Disorder; Rhythmic skills
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Neurodevelopmental Disorders; Motor Skills Disorders
• Other Study ID Numbers: RECHMPL23_0112

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No