Investigating the effectiveness of body percussion exercises on motor coordination and anxiety in children with developmental coordination disorder

Introduction: Background and purpose: Lack of coordination and anxiety are major problems of children with developmental coordination disorder. This study was conducted with the aim of investigating body percussion exercises on motor coordination and anxiety of children with developmental coordination disorder.
Methods: The present study was a semi-experimental type. The statistical population consisted of 8-10-year-old female students with developmental coordination disorder in Khoy city. Among them, 30 volunteer girls with developmental coordination disorder, based on the developmental coordination disorder questionnaire (Wilson et al., 2009) ) and the set of children's movement assessment test-second edition (Henderson et al., 2007) were purposefully identified and participated in the study based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were randomly divided into two experimental and control groups of fifteen people. In order to evaluate the students' coordination, motor coordination test (KTK) was used, and to evaluate children's anxiety, the improved short-form Spence children's anxiety scale was used. The participants of the experimental group performed the drumming program for 6 weeks, three sessions (18 sessions in total) and 45minutes. The data were analyzed using the analysis of covariance test at a significance level of 0/05 and with SPSS version 24 software.
Results: The results showed that the percussion training program reduced anxiety (p<0.001) and improved motor coordination in children with developmental coordination disorder (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Based on the research findings, body percussion exercises can be used to improve motor coordination and anxiety of children with developmental coordination disorder.