Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & Objective: Basic motor skills are the basis of one's motor experiences. In the past, motor skills were solely taught based on adversity, but today, research shows that early interventions and education in childhood affect the development of basic skills. The natural development of children adheres to a relatively predictable pattern, but sometimes problems develop in the process of motor development of children, leading to disruption of normal developmental flow. One of these disorders is growth coordination disorder. Developmental coordination disorder is used to describe children who, without a particular neurological or medical problem, have coordination problems that adversely affect their motor, academic, and social performance. One of the providers that can play an important role in developing a child's comprehensive development is educational programs and motor interventions. One of the new teaching methods is the ecological task analysis method. In this method, after determining the basic components of the task (resulting from the analysis of the task constraints and the effective environment in the task's difficulty), the researcher manipulates the hardness of their assignment according to the individual's constraints. Accordingly, the main purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of manipulating task constraints on the learning of basic motor skills of children with developmental coordination disorder.
Methods: The present study is quasi–experimental with a pretest–posttest design and a control group. The statistical population included all 5– to 7–year–old girls, referring to Mashhad Developmental Coordination Disorder in Mashhad City, Iran. Participants included 30 qualified volunteers selected by the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (Wilson et al., 2009) and the Movement Assessment Battery for Children–2 (MABC–2) (Henderson et al., 2007). They were randomly assigned to two groups of 15 children: training by manipulating task constraints and training without manipulation of task constraints. The inclusion criteria were as follows: having developmental coordination disorder based on the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (Wilson et al., 2009) and confirmation of a child and adolescent psychiatrist based on DSM–5 diagnostic indices, providing consent by parents, and having healthy visual and auditory senses. The exclusion criteria were as follows: not taking part in the pretest or posttest and being absent from more than 2 sessions of the training program.
For data collection, the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCDQ–7), the Movement Assessment Battery for Children–2 (MABC–2), and the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD–3) were used in the pretest and posttest stages. The method of analyzing the task and designing the exercise program was used to manipulate the complexity of the task. The essential components of the task were first identified based on the toughness of the task. Then, the task was matched to the individual's constraints for children with developmental coordination disorder. The trainer manipulates each component and changes the task from easy to complex. To apply these skills in the design of games and exercises, we tried to use a variety of movements to cover all fundamental motor skills. Each game and exercise has three simple, medium, and hard levels created by changing and manipulating the task components and the environment. The subjects performed the intervention program for 4 weeks and three 60–minute sessions each week. The data analysis was performed using the covariance analysis at a significant level of 0.05 through SPSS software 24.
Results: Results indicate the effect of training intervention manipulation of task constraints on locomotion skills variable (p<0.001) and subscales of running (p<0.001), galloping (p<0.001), leaping (p<0.001), and jumping (p<0.001). So, the group with manipulated task constraints performed better than the teaching group that did not. Also, there was no significant difference between the two groups in the skipping and the sliding.
Conclusion: Finally, the present findings showed the effect of training by manipulating the task constraints in learning the fundamental movement skills of children with developmental coordination disorder. Therefore, paying attention to these findings and their effectiveness mechanism, these manipulations and changes in motor tasks can be used as a healthy way to reduce child motor problems with developmental coordination disorder. According to the present findings, educators and parents are advised to use various exercises and games to manipulate task constraints to grow and develop gross motor skills in children with growth coordination disorder.