The Inability To Mentally Represent Action May Be Associated With Performance Deficits in Children With Developmental Coordination Disorder

ABSTRACT

Several research studies indicate that children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) show delays with an array of perceptual-motor skills. One of the explanations, based on limited research, is that these children have problems generating and/or monitoring a mental (action) representation of intended actions, termed the “internal modeling deficit” (IMD) hypothesis. According to the hypothesis, children with DCD have significant limitations in their ability to accurately generate and utilize internal models of motor planning and control. The focus of this review is on one of the methods used to examine action representation—motor imagery, which theorists argue provides a window into the process of action representation (e.g., Jeannerod, . Neural simulation of action: A unifying mechanism for motor cognition. Neuroimage, 14, 103–109.). Included in the review are performance studies of typically developing and DCD children, and possible brain structures involved.

KEYWORDS: :

• Action representation
• developmental coordination disorder
• internal modeling deficit
• motor imagery