Exploring the possible interventions in children and adolescents with Developmental Coordination Disorder. How far have we come? A Scoping Review

Background

Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder. Children with DCD usually need treatment. Indications for intervention are essentially dependent on the influence of the diagnosis on activities of daily life and the proposed treatments are therefore heterogeneous.

Objectives

Identifying and describing the current state of knowledge regarding the treatments available in the literature for the treatment of DCD, defining which of these interventions have been most investigated nowadays, identifying other possible types of intervention that have been introduced in the clinical practice and described by sporadic/anecdotal evidence.

Study design

Scoping review

Eligibility criteria

This review will take in account studies with any type of research design, with no geographical limit, published after 1994. This criterion was defined as corresponding to the date of publication of the DSM-IV, the first document in chronological order to be considered as a reference for the definition of diagnostic criteria in this scoping review.

Inclusion is limited to articles written in either English or Italian language. The population of interest includes children and adolescents (age 0-18 years old) with a diagnose of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) or a probable-DCD (based on DSM-IV or DSM-IV-TR or DSM-V or ICD-10 or ICD-11 criteria) also in possible co-presence of other neurodevelopmental disorders, with the exception of autism spectrum disorder.