Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Objective: Developmental coordination disorder is one of the most common motor disorders in childhood that have devastating impacts on cognitive performance and academic achievement in children. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effect of perceptual–motor games on executive functions in children with developmental coordination disorder.
Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental with pre–test, post–test design. A total of 30girls with developmental coordination disorder were selected by accidental sampling and randomly assigned in experimental and control groups. Children were selected from Isfahan city (center of Iran) in education year 2013-2014. The experimental group received 16 sessions perceptual motor games–based intervention. Conner’s questionnaires, DCD–Q7 were used for two groups to collecting data in pre–test, post–test. Data were analyzed by using ANOVA.
Results: The results showed that perceptual–motor play a significant effect on problem solving, planning and organizing their behavioral (p<0.001). In addition, early interventions based perceptual–motor plays were effective on executive functions in children with DCD (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Due to the findings of this study, the effectiveness of cognitive games–move was confirmed on the executive functions of children with developmental coordination disorder. Therefore, proper interventions to treat the cognitive problems of these children can be effective.