comparison of balance in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder with and without developmental coordination disorder

introduction: attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder (adhd) is a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity - impulsivity behavior. adhd is frequently accompanied by developmental coordination disorder (dcd). motor coordination is a complex performance of interaction between visual perceptual, neuromuscular coordination, memory, attention and balance. one of the most important part of motor coordination is static and dynamic balance. objective: to assess the balance in children with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder with and without developmental coordination disorder and normal children. materials and methods: in this descriptive comparative study, from a total of 45 male children aged 9-7 years, 30 referrals to both public and private psychiatry outpatient centers were non-randomly selected. also, 15 normal children were selected from elementary schools students in rasht, northern iran. diagnostic criteria by clinical interview based on dsm-iv criteria were performed by child and adolescent psychiatrists. static balance was assessed by stork modified test and dynamic balance by the heel and toe walking test. data were analyzed using spss-16.0 software. to determine statistically significant differences in the three groups, annova test was used. p value=0.05 was considered significant. results: children with adhd with and without dcd showed poor static and dynamic balance, compared with normal children (p<0.05). static balance in adhd children with and without dcd was not significant but dynamic balance in adhd + dcd group was lower. conclusions: adhd children with and without dcd have poor balance than normal children. simultaneous presence of dcd and adhd may make dynamic balance deficit more severe in children with adhd.