The Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire—German Version—in a Pediatric Outpatient Clinic for Communication Disorders

Aims: Children with speech disorder, hearing loss, or ASS often show comorbidity in motoric skills. Can parents identify and describe it with the DCDQ-G correctly?

Methods: The DCDQ-G is a screening questionnaire for parents to detect developmental coordination disorders. The results of the questionnaire were compared with the neuromotoric skills made by a pediatrician or child neurologist. Parents of 119 children, aged 5.0 to 7.11 years completed the DCDQ-G. Most of the children presented speech disorders, hearing loss, or ASS.

Results: We screened 119 children. Data from 92 were complete, including 22 children with migrational background (23.9%). Overall, 15 incomplete data sets were from parents with migrational background (55%). The average age was 5.10 years, including 78 boys (65.5%) and 52 girls (34.5%).

The results were compared with the original data from Canada (Wilson et al 2009) and the results from the German study (Kennedy-Behr et al 2013).

The specify and sensitivity in our whole group and in the study group are comparable to the results of the Canadian and German study populations. The prevalence of how parents correctly judge the motoric skills of their children is also comparable.

Conclusion: The DCDQ-G is quite a useful screening instrument for parents to judge the neuromotoric development of their children in a pediatric outpatient clinic for communication disorders. The results are similar to the original study from Canada and the evaluation of the German DCDQ version in Germany.

The results show some of the questions (Question 8 and 9) seem to be difficult for parents of preschool children to answer.

Keywords: developmental coordination disorder.