Sports and Leisure
Many of a child’s sports and leisure activities outside of school time require motor coordination. This can cause challenges for a child with DCD.
The videos below show a typically developing child and child with DCD learning the same ball task:
Impact of DCD on sports
Children with DCD tend to:
- Enjoy sports in early years when focus is on participation and fun
- Withdraw from sports when skill and performance are highlighted
- Sign up for different sports but quit after a few games
- Find games involving balls the most difficult
When playing ball games, children with DCD tend to:
- Miss the ball
- Get hit by the ball
- Not react to the game
- Not keep up
- Fatigue
- Quit
Why are sports and leisure challenging?
Issues with performance and participation in sports and leisure may be due to:
- Stiff posture and slow reactions
- Difficulties with fine and gross motor skills
- Difficulties using two sides of the body together
- Difficulties with hand-eye coordination
- Difficulties monitoring their performance and adapting to a changing environment, like a bumpy field or the unpredictable direction a ball can take
- Lack of awareness of their location in space
- Difficulties with judging speed of objects and other children
- Fear of failure and humiliation
Leisure Time
Children with DCD tend to:
- Be ‘couch potatoes’
- Be passive
- Watch rather than play
- Interact with adults rather than peers
Despite these difficulties, there are a number of activities children with DCD can be successful with. The CanChild handout Encouraging Participation in Physical Activities for Children with DCD offers suggestions on how to pick activities that may be successful for your child.
