The role of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity in the fine motor coordination in children with ADHD

Publication date: October 2017
Source:Research in Developmental Disabilities, Volume 69
Author(s): Javier Fenollar-Cortés, Ana Gallego-Martínez, Luis J. Fuentes
ObjectiveDeficits in fine motor coordination have been suggested to be associated with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). However, despite the negative impact of poor fine motor skills on academic achievement, researchers have paid little attention to this problem. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between ADHD dimensions and fine motor performance.MethodParticipants were 43 children with a diagnosis of ADHD aged between 7 and 14 years (M=9.61; 81% male) and 42 typically developing (TP) children in the same age range (M=10.76; 75.2% male).ResultsChildren with ADHD performed worse than TP on all tasks (δ^{Fine_motor_tasks,} −0.19 to −0.44). After controlling for age and ADHD-HY (hyperactivity/impulsivity), higher scores on ADHD-IN (inattentiveness) predicted a larger number of mistakes among all psychomotricity tasks and conditions (β 0.39–0.58, ps<0.05).ConclusionThe ADHD group showed poorer fine motor performance than controls across all fine motor coordination tasks. However, lower performance (more mistakes), was related to the inattention dimension but not to the hyperactivity/impulsivity dimensions. Authors recommend including training and enhancement of the fine motor skills for more comprehensive ADHD treatment.



http://ift.tt/2wd4Fa3