Static balance in children with hand-eye co-ordination problems

Objective The aim of the present study was to examine static balance on one leg in 10-year-old children with and without hand-eye co-ordination problems (HECP) in an attempt to come closer to an understanding of developmental co-ordination disorder in children. Method The children were compared on three different balance tasks with the right and/or left leg together with a systematic manipulation of vision. Results The results showed that when the scores for both legs were combined, the control group, in general, had superior performance in all conditions. Separate preferred and non-preferred leg analyses demonstrated that the differences between the HECP group and control group could be accounted for by lowered performances when the non-preferred leg was used in only one static balance task, stork stand with vision. In the two other balance tasks, balance on beam and one-board balance, the HECP group displayed significantly worse performance than the control group irrespective of the use of the preferred or non-preferred leg. Conclusions Explanation related to the development of the hemispheres controlling the preferred and non-preferred leg is invoked to account for the poor performance in the HECP group.