Cognitive profiles of preschool children with developmental coordination disorders and developmental language disorders

Various studies have confirmed that developmental coordination disorders (DCD) are often accompanied by developmental language disorders. It is hypothesized that the combination of these disorders is caused by a common deficit. In order to initiate early and appropriate interventions it is of special interest to investigate whether or not children with movement and language disorders have specific cognitive profiles in the WPPSI-III. For this purpose, the WPPSI-III results of a total of 53 children aged 4-6 years with diagnosed isolated developmental coordination disorders (DCD), isolated expressive language disorders, and combined disorders were compared. Children with isolated expressive language disorders were impaired in all verbal tasks; children with DCD showed a homogeneous performance profile, scoring minimally below average in each subtest. In comparison with language-impaired preschoolers, children with coordination and language disorders had identical deficits in all verbal WPPSI-III subtests. In contrast, comparison between children with DCD and combined disorders showed a decline of the test results in all tasks representing intellectual performance abilities. The results of the present study suggest the idea of a generalized phenomenon; in the case of combined coordination and language disorders an extensive assessment of cognitive abilities is essential.