Multisensory adaptation of spatial-to-motor transformations in children with developmental coordination disorder

Abstract

Recent research has demonstrated that adaptation to a visuomotor distortion systematically influenced movements to auditory targets in adults and typically developing (TD) children, suggesting that the adaptation of spatial-to-motor transformations for reaching movements is multisensory (i.e., generalizable across sensory modalities). The multisensory characteristics of these transformations in children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) have not been examined. Given that previous research has demonstrated that children with DCD have deficits in sensorimotor integration, these children may also have impairments in the formation of multisensory spatial-to-motor transformations for target-directed arm movements. To investigate this hypothesis, children with and without DCD executed discrete arm movements to visual and acoustic targets prior to and following exposure to an abrupt visual feedback rotation. Results demonstrated that the magnitudes of the visual aftereffects were equivalent in the TD children and the children with DCD, indicating that both groups of children adapted similarly to the visuomotor perturbation. Moreover, the influence of visuomotor adaptation on auditory-motor performance was similar in the two groups of children. This suggests that the multisensory processes underlying adaptation of spatial-to-motor transformations are similar in children with DCD and TD children.

Figures

Fig. 1

Visual baseline. IDE (top), IDE Var (middle), and RMSE (bottom) for the two groups of participants during the visual baseline phase. Horizontal lines depict the lower quartile, median, and upper quartile values; filled diamond = group mean; + = outliers; open circle = individual participants. Outliers are values beyond 1.5 times the interquartile range. Subject ID numbers for the participants with DCD are provided

Fig. 2

Auditory baseline. IDE (top row) and IDE Var (bottom) during auditory baseline are shown for the two acoustic targets. Horizontal lines depict the lower quartile, median, and upper quartile values; filled diamond = group mean; + = outliers; open circle = individual participants. Outliers are values beyond 1.5 times the interquartile range. Subject ID numbers for the participants with DCD are provided

Fig. 3

Exposure: Mean Trajectories. Mean IDE (left), and RMSE (right) values are shown for the children with DCD (triangles, dotted lines) and TD children (circles, solid lines) as a function of exposure blocks. Vertical lines depict ± one SD. Trial blocks were computed as a mean of three consecutive trials. Right panel reprinted from Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2011, King BR, Harring JR, Oliveira MA, Clark JE, Statistically characterizing intra- and inter-individual variability in children with developmental coordination disorder, with permission from Elsevier

Fig. 4

Post-exposure. a Multisensory effects for the two target positions during auditory post-exposure. b Visual aftereffects: IDE (left) and RMSE (right). Horizontal lines depict the lower quartile, median, and upper quartile values; filled diamond = group mean; + = outliers; open circle = individual participants. Outliers are values beyond 1.5 times the interquartile range. Subject ID numbers for the participants with DCD are provided