Auditory rhythm facilitates perception and action in children at risk for Developmental Coordination Disorder

Abstract

Abstract Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder featuring deficits in motor coordination and motor timing among children. Deficits in rhythmic tracking, including perceptually tracking and synchronizing action with auditory rhythms, have been studied in a wide range of motor disorders, providing a foundation for developing rehabilitation programs incorporating auditory rhythms. However, it is unclear whether DCD also features this deficit. We recruited 7- to 10-year-old children at risk for DCD (rDCD) and typically developing (TD) children. In a speech recognition task with no overt motor component, modulating the speech rhythm interfered more with the performance of rDCD children than TD children. A set of auditory-motor tapping tasks further showed that, although children at risk for DCD performed worse than TD children in general, the presence of an auditory rhythmic cue (isochronous metronome or music) facilitated the temporal consistency of tapping. Finally, accuracy in the recognition of rhythmically modulated speech and tapping consistency correlated with performance on the standardized motor assessment. Together, the results show auditory rhythmic regularity benefits auditory perception and auditory-motor coordination in children at risk for DCD. Clinically, it provides a foundation for developing evidence-based interventions involving auditory-motor rhythmic coordination for children with DCD.