The influence of a short intervention program on early childhood and physical education teachers' ability to identify children with developmental coordination disorders

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a short intervention program designed to enhance the educators' ability to identify children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Twenty early childhood and 20 physical education teachers (n = 40) participated in the study. Participants were randomly assigned into an experimental group (n = 20) and a control group (n = 20). A 3-week intervention program implemented, which comprised of four 2-hour lectures and two practice sections of the same duration and focused on the issue of DCD within the educational setting. After the completion of the program, each educator evaluated four children's motor performance using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children Checklist (Sugden & Sugden, 1991). Subsequently, another assessment took place using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children. The total number of evaluated children was 160. Results showed that the educators who attended the educational program showed higher identification ability. No significant differences were found between physical education and early childhood teachers of the experimental group. On the contrary, in the control group, early childhood teachers exhibited higher identification ability than the physical education teachers. The intervention program significantly enhanced the educators' ability to identify children with DCD. The implication of this study is that the education of school professionals should be a continuous process.