Families

Help parents understand the nature of DCD and how best to manage the impact of coordination difficulties on daily life

  • Work with families to transfer knowledge of DCD - how it affects motor functioning, how best to teach new motor activities, and how to support children with DCD during the learning process.
  • Share resources that help families to understand and use best strategies to manage DCD.
  • Share resources and support families sharing resources with others (e.g., their child, siblings, the extended family, teachers, coaches).
  • Recommend specific activities for health promotion, participation, and fitness.
  • Help families promote self-esteem and resilience in their children.
Resources
General Resources About Resilience

The Resilience Research Centre focus is the study of the social and physical ecologies that make resilience more likely to occur. For more information, visit the Resilience Project website.

Question for Reflection
How can you translate knowledge in ways that target how adults learn?
Click here for some thoughts on this question
How can you translate knowledge in ways that target how adults learn?

We know that:

  • Learning is continuous
  • Instructional methods must accommodate diverse learning styles and use a multitude of strategies (videos, printed materials, demonstrations)
  • Adults have personal agendas and a bank of previous experiences upon which to build
  • Adults learn new material by applying it to their own situations

We should allow adults learners to:

  • Experience knowledge first hand
  • Try it out themselves
  • Problem-solve how knowledge may be relevant to other clients, situations or activities
  • Use their knowledge and skills independently when new tasks or situations arise with the child, or with other children who have similar issues

To allow transfer, generalization and sustainability of learning:

  • Create links or bridges between current learning and similar skills, situations and tasks
  • Ask learners to reflect upon how the knowledge may be relevant in a broader context
  • Help learners to discover their own solutions to problems, with your guidance. "Ask don't tell": Problem-solving on the part of the learner is essential to learning, and it is important for learners to try things out, make mistakes, and discover solutions on their own in order to remember and apply their learning
So what about Max?
Max's parents want to help but don't know what to do. You share task-oriented, motor learning, and cognitive principles with them, and refer them to the CanChild online DCD parents’ module, and specifically to the M.A.T.C.H. strategies section. You also discuss with them the importance of finding a balance between learning to do something versus adapting the activity to make it easier for him. Using Velcro shoes on weekdays and practicing tying his shoes on weekends is a good example!