Relationship between motor and executive functioning in school-age children with pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified

This study examines the motor skills and executive functioning (EF) of 28 children diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS; mean age: 10 years 6 months, range: 7–12 years; 19 boys, 9 girls) in comparison with ageand gender-matched typically developing children. The potential relationship between motor performance and EF in children with PDD-NOS is investigated as well. The children’s motor skills were evaluated with the Movement ABC. EF, in terms of planning ability, strategic decision making, and problem solving, was gauged with the Tower of London (TOL) task. Compared with their typically developing peers, the children with PDD-NOS scored poor on the Movement ABC (p < 0.01) and the TOL (p < 0.05). They had significantly more definite motor problems than the normative sample of the Movement ABC: 43% (manual dexterity, p < 0.001), 25% (ball skills, p < 0.001), and 25% (balance skills, p < 0.001). There were significant inverse relationships between manual dexterity and the TOL score (r = 0.46, p < 0.01), and balance and the TOL score (r = 0.41, p < 0.05), indicating that children with a better performance on the manual dexterity subtest and the balance subtest had a better TOL score than children with a worse performance. Children with PDD-NOS have inferior motor skills, and these deficits are interrelated with planning ability, strategic decision making, and problem solving. 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author at: Center for Human Movement Sciences, University Medical Center Groningen, Section F, PO Box 196, 9700 AD, Groningen, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 0 50 363 2775; fax: +31 0 50 363 3150. E-mail address: [email protected] (E. Hartman).