The effect of exercises with contextual interference of training on attention problems in children with developmental coordination disorder

Background and aims: Developmental Coordination Disorders (DCD) is one of the most common disorders affecting on the children with 5-8 years old. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of training and different background interference (blocked and random practice) on Attention disorders in children with DCD between 5 to 7 years old in Mashhad city. Methods: The research method was quasi-experimental. Among all children with DCD in Kindergartens of Mashhad, 45 children were selected by screening tests after the completion of the Conner's psychological nursing questionnaire as pre-test, and they were divided randomly into three groups of 15 subjects (block practice, random practice, and control groups. In the following, the current experimental groups performed training by different contextual interfering for 8 weeks (3 sessions per week, and each session 45 minutes). At the end, post-test was performed again by Connor's neuropsychological questionnaire to all subjects. T-test and Covariance test were used respectively to determine intra-group and inter-group differences. Results: The results of the present study showed that training in both experimental groups had effective growth on attention problems in children with DCD (block P=0.01, random P=0.001), while in the control group had no effect (P=0.58). Also, the results of this study showed that training group with more contextual interfering was more effective on attention problems in children with DCD and caused more improvement in these children. Conclusion: However, it can be concluded that training with more background interference can cause further improvement of attention problems in children with DCD