Caracterização dos pré-requisitos para alfabetização e diferenças no desempenho escolar entre crianças com e sem provável transtorno do desenvolvimento da coordenação

Abstract

Children with probable Developmental Coordination Disorder (pDCD) have difficulties with fine motor coordination, spatial organization, and visual perception, which are fundamental aspects for learning to read and write. Thus, our objectives were to characterize the prerequisites for literacy in children with pDCD and to investigate whether this condition would interfere with the performance of the prerequisites for the literacy process. This is a quantitative research study that characterizes and associates variables with interference. The participants were children of both sexes aged between 6 years and 6 years and 11 months, enrolled in the 1st year of elementary school in municipal public schools in the city of Manaus, Amazonas. As instruments for data collection, we used the Motor Assessment Battery for Children (MABC-2) and the Basic Literacy Repertoire Assessment Instrument. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential analyses, in which we used the Kruskal- Wallis and Mann-Whitney U statistical techniques with Bonferroni correction. The results revealed three levels of performance: (N1) Low repertoire; (N2) Developing repertoire; and (N3) Expected repertoire. Children with pTDC performed worse than typical children in seven prerequisites, corroborating the hypothesis that pTDC interferes with the prerequisites for literacy and that the more severe the condition, the more impaired the children's performance may be.