4 July 2015

Schreibmotorik Institut lecture at the 11th International Conference on Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) in Toulouse

At the International Conference on Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) in Toulouse, France, Dr. Christian Marquardt gave a lecture with the title “Kinematic movement analysis in handwriting: A diagnostic tool to enhance training in writers with and without DCD”. Dr.-Ing. Marianela Diaz Meyer was coauthor.

The conference has been held every two years since 1995 and brings together international experts who intensively examine motor skills problems in children. But parents and teachers also take part in the conference. The conference emerged as a result of a meeting of scientists in London in 1994, who introduced the term Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) in order to improve interdisciplinary communication in this area. Since then, both research and knowledge have seen huge developments.

For children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD), learning to write is extremely difficult and stressful. The kinetic analysis of writing movements can provide helpful hints that benefit the learning process. It reveals the fine structure of the writing process, which for the most part remains hidden during simple observation of the handwriting on the paper.

This allows for the objective and quantitative observation of writing movements and differentiation between fluid and impaired movements. This makes it possible to diagnose developmental coordination disorders (DCD) and develop and begin therapy that is tailored to the individual. With the help of kinetic writing analysis, training success can also be documented. In the education sector, the respective performance level when learning to write can be measured. Such an approach is also preventative in nature and may hinder future writing problems from occurring early on.