Movement Difficulties in Developmental Disorders

This book aims to take the reader through the process of working with children showing movement difficulties from first identification through to support and intervention. It is aimed at professionals such as therapists and teachers, as well as parents, who wish to support children with such difficulties. It shows how professionals and parents/carers working together can make relatively simple changes in a child's life that add up to substantial support. The core of the text is focused on children with developmental coordination disorder, or what is often called ‘dyspraxia’. The book also discusses children who show movement difficulties as a secondary and co-occurring characteristic, such as those on the autism spectrum, or those with generic learning difficulties, dyslexia, or attention deficit disorder.

David A Sugden is Emeritus Professorin the School of Education at the University of Leeds, UK.  His academic background is in developmental psychology, special education and physical education. His specialist research interests include motor development, motor impairment, motor learning, and children with developmental disorders. His work centres on the characteristics of typically developing children and those with various forms of impairment. He is co-author of the most widely used assessment instrument for motor difficulties, the Movement Assessment Battery for Children.  His publications range from pure research to professional practice. He reviews for government research councils, in UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore and for many journals.  He has successfully supervised over 40 PhD students.

Michael G Wade is currently Professor in the School of Kinesiology University of Minnesota Twin Cities, USA. Professor Wade’s research interests focus on human movement in general and more specifically on the coordination and control of skill in normal and abnormal human movement across the lifespan. His published research addresses atypical children with both intellectual disabilities and those with dyspraxia. He has published continuously from 1968 to the present, including over 100 journal articles, book chapters, and books, both edited and authored. Dr Wade is a Fellow of the American Academy of Kinesiology and is a Past President of the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity.